


My Love Shall Ever Live Young

by starshinedown



Series: Aengus [2]
Category: Twilight - Meyer
Genre: All Human, Alternate Universe, F/M, Wordcount: Over 50.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-26
Updated: 2010-08-27
Packaged: 2017-10-09 17:53:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 81,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/90008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starshinedown/pseuds/starshinedown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sequel to Aengus. Edward and Bella are reunited, but when the love of your life is a god who holds grudges like no one you've ever met and is eyeballs deep in mythological intrigue, a fairytale ending can be hard to reach. An all human AU, though Edward is a mythological creature.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own the Twilight characters. They belong to Stephanie Meyer. I just like to muck around with them from time to time.
> 
> Pogurl is the bestest for beta-ing this for me. Thanks so much!
> 
> I originally started posting this elsewhere in the Fall of 2008, so it has evolved as I've written it. If you start to wonder at style or formatting changes, that will probably explain it.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading!

This was a bad idea. She knew as soon as she picked up the phone instead of getting on the plane that it was a bad idea. Who calls their parents—parents they are very, very, _very_ close to—to say "Hi Dad! Mom! I'm moving to a different continent! Kthanksbye!" and makes such a phone call instead of getting on a planned-and-paid-for plane ride home? Charlie was going to burst a vein. Renee—well, there was no telling with Renee. She could join Charlie in his vein-popping or she could offer to move with Bella to simply have an adventure. And she gave Emmett two weeks to wrangle his way to her little nook of the Emerald Isle. Alice...no, don't think about Alice. She'd be the worst of the bunch. She'd give Bella such a guilt trip she'd never see the end of it. Alice credited her ability to guilt people to her mother's best friend—a fantastically entertaining Jewish lady who took to teaching the damn little imp all her tricks, calling it "JMIT, Jewish Mother in Training." Bella squeezed her eyes shut. This was going to be miserable.

She looked over at Edward with fear in her eyes when Charlie picked up the phone. She took a deep breath and plunged in. "Hi Dad! Is Mom there?"

He watched her scrunch up her face when her father answered her call. He couldn't get over how breathtakingly beautiful she was, how incredible it was to be with her, here, now, finally.

Finally.

Finally he could wrap her up in his body and warm her when she got cold. Finally he could trace his finger along her jawline and kiss her nose. Finally he could feel the hair on her arms raise in response to his touch. Finally he could catch her as she fell.

He'd thought, at the beginning, that two or three decades to the life of an immortal would be nothing; that before he knew it, they'd be reunited. He'd thought that keeping time in her mind and comforting her as much as he could in that fashion would be enough. It wasn't. Nothing less than what they had now was enough, and the three decades of limited contact had been pure and utter torture for him. He needed her touch to comfort him. He needed to see himself reflected in her eyes to be complete. He'd been a whisper of himself while he'd been relegated to connecting with her only in her mind. Even now, when she was mere feet from him, he felt the lack.

His musings brought him to walk across the small kitchen to her while she was on the phone and drop little kisses on top of her precious head. Her eyes flickered up to him briefly and she graced him with a smile before going back to her conversation.

"Dad. I'm keeping my place in Seattle. The condo there is small, and I can more than afford both a home here and there near you guys. I'm working with an estate agent here who is helping me with the property-buying process. I've already found a great little house here. There are spare bedrooms for when any or all of you come visit. I have a lawyer to help me with questions about insurance and stuff and all those different things here." His loved paused, and he stepped back to admire her.

The play of muscles across her throat and jaw while she talked was mesmerizing. The way she shifted her weight from leg to leg, causing her hips to sway enticingly, was bewitching. She was poetry in motion. His lips curled up in response to her rolling eyes. He couldn't hear what was being said on the other end of the call, but he could make some educated guesses based on his love's responses.

"Dad," She started after her pause, "I'm not abandoning you. Or Mom. Or Emmett. I'm just moving someplace new. I am thirty. And kids _do_ sometimes move away from home. You're just lucky that Em and I have been fairly homebody-ish until now."

He sympathized with her father. He knew too well how hard being separated from her was; it made sense to him that her father would react unhappily to the news that he would see her much less frequently now. He ground his teeth in frustration. If he could relocate permanently to her rainy hometown, he would. It would make life easier on his precious swan. But the corporeal form he assumed here could only be managed for a limited time once he left the sidh mounds that his people called home. He could go with her to visit her family and friends in the States, but never for an extended stay. Even if he'd been born and played human with her, moving away from Eire would have been disastrous to his health. He'd tried that in one of their incarnations, during the famine that drove so many of the Irish away from the Isle and to the States. That body had gone from stout, strong, and dependable to frail and riddled with disease in a matter of months. _Lesson learned_.

He left his thoughts and came back into the present when he heard Bella make a strangled kind of choking noise. "Mom's what?" She looked like she wanted to laugh, but couldn't decide if it was the correct thing to do. Her eyebrows furrowed as she listened to the noises coming through the receiver.

The urge to laugh won. She barked out a short, disbelieving laugh and clamped her hand over her mouth. "She's dancing? Huh? Put Mom on." She paused again until she heard her mother pick up the phone. "Dancing, Mom? Really?" She rolled her eyes and glanced over at him. "Mom! A jig? It's not-" Her face turned bright red. "Why would you say that, Mom? Well," now she was biting her lip. What was that woman saying to his love? "yes, actually. I did meet someone. We've been on a date or two."

Even from where he was standing he could hear the high-pitched squeal come through from the other end of the phone.

Bella grinned, reminding him of a cat who'd found the cream. "He's _very_ handsome. The best looking man in Ireland." He preened. She was blushing yet again. "Renee! Come on! I'm not a teen anymore! I know all about condoms and birth control. Seriously. Have you read the books I've written? Do my heroines accidentally get pregnant even though they have lots of sex?"

Whatever her mother said to her after that didn't affect her so, and he was back to simply watching her. The faint halo of light formed by the low sun shining through the windows and reflecting off of her hair softened her features and gave her an ethereal look.

_Mine_, he thought triumphantly. _All mine._

She hung up the phone, drained. The conversation with her parents had been at once every bit as tough as she'd imagined and much easier. Charlie had, predictably, not reacted well. Renee, however, had been excited. Her baby girl was being adventurous! Moving to another country! Dating!

As if "dating" were an accurate description. But what was she going to tell her parents? That the imaginary friend she'd never given up as a kid was suddenly real? Ha! So she just told her mom that she'd gone on a date with a handsome man she'd met while living here. It was more or less the truth. There was no way to explain how close they were, so she just down played it and decided to gradually introduce the idea of Edward to her family. As though they were progressing together at a somewhat normal pace.

So her mom was thrilled. Her dad was stressed. She could practically hear him squeezing his eyes shut and resting his forehead against the kitchen wall as she dropped the bomb that she was moving here to stay, that she'd fallen in love with the area and couldn't bare to permanently leave. _That her love of all time was here and, therefore, she would be here, too._ That last bit remained unsaid, however.

Her next phone call would be to Alice, then Emmett. Her screeches before his growling.

Shit. Emmett. She was fairly certain he'd be here before the month was out to give her a piece of his mind and figure out why his baby sister had flipped her lid and decided to relocate across the world.

She'd have to introduce Edward.

She'd never brought a man home to the family. How, within the span of the month, was she going to convince her obnoxiously overprotective, but creepily perceptive , brother that it was a-ok for Edward to be sharing a house with her?

Shit. Right. At least the chances of Emmett remembering that she'd had a redheaded childhood friend named Edward were slim.

Delightfully strong arms wrapped around her from behind. He kissed the top of her head. "How are your parents taking the news that their little girl is leaving them for a love god?"

She rolled her eyes as she brought her hands up to gently squeeze his forearms. "Ok, Cupid."

He growled.

She giggled.

She'd learned soon after they'd reunited that making jokes about his position in Celtic mythology, especially comparing him in any way to the Roman god of love, was a sure way to push his buttons. This meant of course that she brought up Cupid almost every time he referenced the fact that he was, indeed, the god of love and youth. She secretly thought he got a kick out of her tweaking—he certainly called himself a love god often enough.

Of course, he's been earning that title since they reunited, but that was besides the point.

She felt his breath on her ear and neck as he gently kissed her, and she sighed and leaned back, resting her weight against his chest. Then again, maybe it was _just_ the point. They were making up for lost time. He was an expert at turning her knees to mush and making those damn birds of his fly around her head in post-coital bliss.

As if to make her thoughts reality, he dipped his head so he could nuzzle and nip at the part of her neck just behind and below her ear. The hair on her arms rose as a shiver ran through her body at the contact. Having Edward's lips on her was divine. She reveled in the feel of his chest and body pressed against her, firm evidence of his arousal hard against her lower back. A low moan escaped her throat as she pushed her hips back into him, gyrating slowly. She felt his hands drop down to her hips, where he squeezed her tightly, his fingers digging into her skin.

His lips brushed against her ear. "Bella."

The lazy ball of warm pressure was building in her abdomen, and they hadn't done anything yet! Once again, she was amazed that she'd managed to live for so long without him wholly in her life. She reached her right arm up behind her and hooked her hand firmly on the back of his neck, tugging him down to her shoulder, which he nibbled and bit, just as she wanted. With her other arm, she reached behind her to run her hand the length of his erection. Awkward positioning, but not uncomfortable.

Having her arms twisted behind her like this left her front totally exposed, and he took advantage, moving his hands up from her hips, under her shirt, feeling every patch of skin along her sides until he reached her breasts. He massaged them through the thin material and delighted in the feeling her hard nipples against his palms. She moaned and pushed her chest into his hands, which in turn pushed her ass back even further against him. There was nothing quite like feeling that luscious bottom flush against him. It was so easy for her to make him fall apart.

He walked them forward until she was pressed against the island counter, sandwiched between him and the cold ceramic tile. He untangled himself from her arms and pulled her shirt above her head. She put her hands on the counter top to help with balance. Still behind her, he kept her hips pressed against the island and he knelt down behind her and began kissing and licking her lower back, slowing working his way up, worshiping her body as he went. He stopped at her bra and unhooked the flimsy garment, tugging the straps down her arms until it hung from her elbows. She moved her arms so that it slid off of her and onto the counter. He continued his way up her back, taking the time to suck and nibble on the finely sculpted muscles of her upper back and shoulders—he should really take the time to thank Emmett for convincing her to start a regular exercise regime in college—and ended the nape of her neck, where he alternately licked, then blew gently across the wet spot.

As he'd worked his way up her back, his hands had been caressing her sides and stomach, massaging the muscles and leaving a trail of goose bumps as they moved over her skin. When he stopped at her neck, his hands stopped on her breasts, kneading them, tweaking the nipples, teasing her with feather-light touches.

By now her breathing was ragged. They'd ended up in a similar position to how they'd started, with Edward pinning her against the counter, his rock-hard erection pressed into her back. She took one of his warm hands, still kneading her breast, and brought it up to her mouth. She took his index finger in, licking it first, then caressing it with her lips as she sucked on it gently. A low rumbled vibrated out from his chest. She smiled as she released that finger and then gave his middle finger similar treatment. She sucked and licked each finger in turn, and by the time she reached his pinky, they were rhythmically grinding into one another. When she released the smallest finger, he pulled her slightly back from the counter and quickly pulled her jeans down.

He thought he was going to die of happiness. She was completely bare under her jeans, no panties. He couldn't suppress the groan of desire that welled up. "My heart, you've been walking around all day with nothing under your jeans?"

She craned her neck to look behind her and catch his eye. "It's called going to commando, Edward. And yes. All day, around you, when we were at the market, meeting with the solicitor, I've been like this. Do you like?" With that question she shook her ass at him.

His jaw dropped and his eyes tracked the movement of her flesh. She had, by far, the best ass in existence. Edward dropped to his knees behind her, grabbed one cheek with both hands, and bit. Not hard enough to break the skin or really hurt her, but hard enough to leave a faint impression of his teeth. _Mine_.

Bella squeaked and jumped a little, and enjoyed the mild possessive act. Already wet, her body's moisture started to coat the inside of her thighs. "Marking your territory?" She hoped her voice sounded sultry.

"Mmmm." His moan vibrated against her skin, making her drip even more. How could he continually do this to her? What had been a lazy ball of heat and pressure in her abdomen was now stoked into a raging fire. Without conscious thought, she moved her hips back and was rewarded by feeling both his hands spayed across her ass.

"Bella," he hissed. He spread her cheeks apart a bit and got a peek at her glistening heat. He put his mouth to the back of her knee and kissed his way up the back of her thigh, curving to the interior of her leg as he neared the top. She was dripping just above his nose, now. He pushed up on her a bit, spreading both her legs and her ass in the process.

"Bend over, love."

Another pulse of moisture spilled out of her. Hadn't she just had fantasies this morning about him bending her over the bathroom sink? This was almost as good. She complied with his direction, raising up on her toes a bit to lay her torso flat out on the counter top and hissing as her nipples met the cold tile.

Edward was in awe. Seeing her bare before him was always a treat, something he cherished and enjoyed like nothing else. Seeing her bent over and stretched over the counter, natural lubricant coating her most intimate area, completely ready for him, took his breath away. He remained kneeling behind her and slowly ran his index finger up and down her slit. It was like touching silk. Tasty, arousing, silk. He began massaging her clit with his finger and brought his face in close so that he could taste her. Nothing, _nothing_ was better.

Bella was grateful for the support of the island counter. If most of her weight were on her feet, she would have collapsed already. She realized abruptly that she was moaning. For how long had that been going on? It didn't matter.

All that mattered was the feel of his tongue.

His lips.

His fingers.

His palms.

His tongue. Oh, God, his tongue.

"Edwaaaaaaard." She was panting. The magma from her belly was moving through her body, igniting all her cells as it raged through. Her hands clutched at the counter ineffectively. A keening noise came from her mouth and her body spasmed as her orgasm rocked her. He hummed against her in approval, and the vibrations triggered another wave to flow through her.

Her forehead thudded down on the counter and she sagged into it. She was completely spent. She felt his hands squeeze her rear affectionately and run his hands gently up her back to her shoulders. He pulled her up into her feet and cradled her in his arms.

She let him support her. "That was...absolutely delicious. Bending me over the counter. I can think of a few other things you can bend me over." She smiled lazily when his arms tightened around her.

"I'll bend you over everything in the house if you want me to, my heart."

His voice was husky and she thrilled at the shiver that ran down her arms. She brought her hand down to stroke his erection and purred against his chest. "I think that before you bend me over any more objects, we need to take care of you."

And so they began round two.

Three days later she was laughing with Edward over the year she'd taken Thanksgiving dinner over from her mother, who always ruined one, if not all, of the dishes for the holiday meal. At fifteen, Bella had gotten tired of never having leftovers, and only having sides—brought by extended family—that were edible at the table. By this time, Bella had been cooking most of the family meals anyway, so she just waltzed into the kitchen Wednesday night and told her mother that she had an experiment—Renee was always a sucker for experiments and new ideas—and wanted to try it out on the Thanksgiving turkey. Renee was happy to acquiesce, the turkey was divine (and traditionally roasted) and from there on out the bird and stuffing were Bella's domain.

Wait. Thanksgiving. Today was...she looked over at the calendar. November 15th. Thanksgiving was less than two weeks away!

Her face paled. She'd never, ever missed Thanksgiving dinner with her family. It was the one holiday where they all got together, even extended family. Christmas, for some reason, wasn't as big a deal, but Thanksgiving? She had to be there. She turned to Edward. "I need to go home."

His eyebrows bunched together in confusion. "You are home _a ghrá_. What do you mean?" Now that he was funneling his energies into a corporeal form, he couldn't settle into her mind and figure out what she was thinking as he had in the past. He found it surprisingly frustrating; he hadn't realized how much he'd relied on that ability. Though, this way he could kiss and hold her and love her, so in the end it wasn't that much of a sacrifice. He'd gladly give up his ability to know what she was thinking so that he could spend the whole day in bed with her, as he had yesterday.

* * *

She whimpered slightly. This would have been so much easier if she'd given her family some time to get used to the idea of her seeing someone. As it was, she'd told Renee and Alice that she was dating someone, and confided in Alice that said someone was capital "S" Special, but she hadn't told them they were living together. She'd been reluctant to mention Edward to Emmett at all, knowing her brother still had a difficult time not treating her like she was a kid in need of a protector, never mind the fact that he was 35 and she 30.

As soon as she decided she had to come home for Thanksgiving, and she and Edward decided they couldn't spend the two weeks apart this soon after finding each other again, she'd called her parents to give them information on her visit home and to half ask them, half tell them, that she was bringing a guest. A male guest. A male guest with whom she had a romantic relationship. A male guest of whom they had heard precious little.

During the phone call with Renee, she was fairly certain she heard Charlie, with Emmett in the background, sharpening knives and getting ready to crucify the man she was daring to bring home. This was going to be the worst Thanksgiving in the history of Swan family Thanksgivings.

Then again, Edward would be by her side, in the flesh, so it would be her personal favorite Thanksgiving.

So now the two of them were on a transatlantic flight with a layover at New York City's LaGuardia airport, from whence they'd depart and fly across the country to her sleepy little hometown in Forks, Washington. Her plan was to have her neighbor and friend Angela pick them up from SeaTac and bring them back to her condo in Seattle, where they'd spend the night. From there, they'd take her car down to Forks to visit the family and face the firing squad. Which reminded her.

"Edward?" She leaned over so that her lips were millimeters from his ear, her breath tickling the sensitive skin there.

"Yes, my heart?" He turned his head slightly toward her, but he liked feeling her breath on him, so he didn't move much. She sounded concerned, and he wondered what she could be worrying about now. Hadn't she been wringing her hands over this trip for the past week, since she had called her parents to them know the two of them were visiting? She'd been constantly coming up with new topics of worry, and he was both entertained by her ability to come up with new terrible scenarios and worried about the stress level she was putting herself under. In an attempt to calm her down, he placed his left hand on her thigh, just above her knee, and used his thumb to rub a pattern of soothing circles. He still couldn't get over the sensation of her warm skin under his hand or the reassuring warmth that crept from her body to his whenever they touched.

Her heart skipped a beat when she felt his hand on her leg and his thumb moving against the fabric of her jeans. "Edward," she breathed, "I can't concentrate when you do that." She leaned in a little closer and let her lips brush against the shell of his ear. She smiled against his skin when she felt his hand grip her leg. "You see?" She purred, "Distracting. And I," she pouted, "had a question."

He kept the firm grip on her leg as he pulled away from her slightly and looked at her. "What's your question? Did you find something else to worry over?" He couldn't keep the husky quality from his voice. The way he felt when she whispered against his ear like that was almost too much. He silently cursed their location in a crowded plane. He'd like to be able to pull her onto his lap and have his way with her right then. His body was straining against the confinement of his pants and the seat belt.

"Are you...can you..." She paused, trying to find the right way to word her question. "How fragile are you in this form? I mean, you aren't reborn into a human body like I am, so can you die? Age? Be killed?"

He mulled this over. "I'm not un-killable; it is, after all, possible to kill a god, and this form does make me more vulnerable than I would otherwise be. But at the same time, I'm not susceptible to disease the way you are. Also, I can make myself appear to age, so that I blend in better as we're together over the years. Does that answer your questions?" He shifted his weight and turned to face her more fully, in the process trailing his fingertips up along her leg to her torso, where he lightly brushed them against her side.

Her face scrunched up. "Kinda. Mostly, my immediate concern is...well...Charlie has guns. I'm thinking specifically, his service revolver. And, um, you know I've never brought a boy, or, I should say, man home to the family before and I'm really worried about how Charlie is going to handle it, so I want to know if I have to worry about us being separated prematurely if he shoots you." She bit her lip, unsure if she should go ahead and continue this: she was, after all, being silly. She didn't _really_ think Charlie would shoot Edward. If violence was going to occur, it'd be much more likely that Emmett would deck him. "What…what would happen, actually, if you were shot? Or wounded, for that matter? Do you bleed? Heal instantly? Heal normally? Feel pain like we do? How's this work?" She took a long breath. "I can't believe I haven't asked before! I've been wondering, but I suppose I just got caught up in house-hunting and dealing with the estate agent and solicitor and trying to squeeze writing in, and -"

She was cut off as he kissed her. "No worries, _a ghrá_. If the wound is not a fatal one, I'll heal quickly. The only thing I really have to worry about is iron. And as far as I know, most bullets are mostly made of lead, copper, or alloys, maybe some steel. Nothing fatal to me." He shifted uncomfortably at the thought of being struck with iron. It was one of the few physical weaknesses his people had; without their iron weapons, he didn't think the Milesians would have been able to defeat them at the battle of Teltown.

* * *

"Ready to go into the lion's den?" She asked in a half-joking, half-serious voice.

He nodded gravely, hiding his smile. His Bella was nervous, and he didn't want her to think he was laughing at her. Even though he was. Bella nervous was an adorable sight; another facet of her beauty. "I'll even pretend I don't know who everyone is." With that, he couldn't stop his lips from curling into a smile. He'd spent, by way of hovering around Bella, twenty-nine Thanksgiving dinners with this family. He was really, really, going to enjoy Esme's pies. They'd smelled delicious and he'd been bitter more than once over the decades that he couldn't find out for himself that the pies tasted even more heavenly than they smelled.

His memory tugged at him. There had been one Thanksgiving, seven or eight years ago, that had been especially difficult for him, and a bit awkward for Bella. That was the year that Alice, her cousin, had brought her new boyfriend to dinner. Her new boyfriend who had been Bella's go-to friend for experimenting purposes when she was curious about boys. He'd had to watch that idiot when the two were in high school, watch him slide his hands up Bella's shirt on the bus all those years ago, watch him undress Bella the first time she was naked in front of a man, watch him learn about a woman's body with Bella as she learned about men with him.

Over the centuries that he and his Cáer had had their spirits reborn into mortal bodies for the experience, he'd heard more than one over eager preacher rail at the populace, warning them about the tortures of Hell, of the fires and of the misery of the kingdom of Lucifer. In the years Bella had been in high school and college, discovering her sexuality, Edward realized that the preachers and evangelists had not only gotten Hell wrong, they'd been horribly, horribly wrong. Hell was high school. Hell was watching your mate take another man into her body. And the man-boy, then-who'd done everything but relieve Bella of her virginity over a decade ago was going to be in the same town, the same house, the same _room_.

When he'd been incorporeal, he'd spent a lot of time using his limited ability to influence humans here to make Jasper lightheaded, dizzy, queasy, and antsy. He'd been delighted when he realized how sensitive to emotions and moods Jasper was; he'd taken to "sitting" on the boy and feeding him immense amounts of guilt. He glumly realized that he'd have to play nice for his Bella's sake, and pretend to the blond man that there was no history there. He'd especially have to be polite around the children. It wasn't their fault their father had been so eager to get into their Aunt Bella's pants as a teen.

He clawed his way out of his thoughts when he felt her hand gently squeezing his arm. "Are you ok, Edward?" She looked like she wanted to say more, biting her lip hesitantly. "You looked a bit lost in thought, there."

He took her hand in his and brought it to his lips, blind to the members of her family standing around them. "I'm fine, love. Just taking it all in. I hope I haven't been rude." He looked around, then, and saw her mother's beaming face, her brother's scowl, Alice's ear-to-ear grin peeking out over the tow-headed toddler in her arms.

Bella grinned up at him. She knew very well that when he had that particular expression on his face that he was lost in memories, usually memories of her. She wondered if he'd been going over Thanksgivings past and comparing them to the new experience of being here and being able to interact with everyone.

"I was just about to start introductions, you didn't miss anything. You were only lost in your thoughts for a moment." She sucked him in with _that_ smile, the smile that was reserved just for him, before continuing. "Right, then. Edward," she gestured to the people in the room, "this is everyone. Everyone," she gestured to the god next to her, "this is Edward. Be nice." She winked at him. "Specifically, Edward, these are my parents, Renee and Charlie."


	2. Chapter 2

He shook Charlie's hand and greeted him, and reached out to shake Renee's hand when he felt the small woman wrap her arms around him and bring him in for a hug. "We're glad to have you here! It's so exciting to have Bella bring you home! She never does that. You must be making an impression on our daughter." She glanced over at Bella, who had a wary look on her face, clearly expecting something awful to come out of her mother's mouth. "My daughter certainly has good taste. You're very handsome. Tell me, are all the men-"

"MOM!" Bella cut her off. "Could you please, please not embarrass me or Edward while we're here? Please? NOT. APPROPRIATE." She rolled her eyes and pulled him so that he was now facing her brother and his wife. "Edward, meet my brother Emmett and his wife Rosalie. Rose is also my editor, which is how they met. Em, Rose, this is Edward." Her voice nearly faltered at the look on Emmett's face. He looked like he was chewing rocks.

Edward extended his hand to Emmett, already bracing himself for what was sure to be a bone-crushing handshake from this huge man as he attempted to intimidate his sister's guest. _Guest?_ No. _Lover?_ Well…yes. But more. More than _boyfriend_. Maybe _husband?_ Future husband, past husband, mate. Swans mate for life. What label were they to use in this life, right now?

He bit back on the wince as his future brother-in-law did, indeed, attempt to squeeze his hand to a pulp as they shook on their greeting, giving the other man's hand as good as he got. He saw Emmett's eyebrows raise slightly. Was that surprise at such a firm grip from a smaller man? Respect for Edward returning the gesture? He couldn't be sure. Edward was careful to keep his face smooth, and when the machismo contest ended, he offered his hand to Rosalie, whose handshake was firm and professional.

While Edward and Emmett where having their machismo contest, Bella greeted her parents with warm hugs. She took a moment to relish the feelings of love she could feel from both of them; she could practically feel the emotion radiating from them to her. This was- no, had been, home. Her heart had been here her whole life, but now it had a new place to reside; Edward. _He_ was home now, her port during any storm.

Renee whispered in her ear as they hugged. "Baby, when he proposes, and he obviously will at some point, based on how he's looking at you, I want you to call me first thing, no matter what time it is here, ok?"

Bella released her mother from their embrace with an amazed look. "Mom," she murmured in reply, "we've been here what, five minutes?"

"Doesn't matter," was the reply. "It's clear as day. Oh, and Emmett will probably burst a vein this weekend. He's mad at your Dad and me for being ok with your bringing Edward." Renee pecked her daughter on the cheek and headed off into the kitchen to pour drinks for everyone.

Alice was still bouncing her son on her hip, so Bella directed Edward to the smaller woman's parents, Bella's aunt and uncle. "Edward, this is Aunt Esme," she paused and gestured to the older woman, "and Uncle Carlisle. They're Alice's," she waved in the direction of the diminutive woman, "parents, and my second set of parents. I ran to them when Mom and Dad wouldn't give me cookies." She grinned and winked at Charlie.

He shook Carlisle's hand, and Esme, like her sister, pulled Edward in for a hug. "Welcome to the family." She whispered in his ear. She pulled back with a knowing look on her face. "You and Bella look very happy, dear. We're glad to have you here, and glad to see the smile on our Bella's face." The smile she gave him was warm, and could sense no sarcasm or insincerity from her. She was genuinely that nice.

They watched Alice shift her son to her mother's arms, and then she bounded over to Edward and caught him in a fierce hug before Bella could open her mouth to introduce them properly. "I'm so glad you're here!" She exclaimed. "I had such a good feeling about Bella's trip to Ireland." She threw a triumphant look at Emmett. "I knew reconnecting to the family's history there would be a good idea for her."

The startlingly energetic tiny woman released him from her grip and took her son back from Esme. "Edward, this is mine and Jasper's oldest, Austin. Jasper's upstairs with the baby, Chloe. He'll be down in a minute."

Edward smiled at the little boy. He remembered the day he was born; Bella had been at the hospital with Alice while Jasper was rushing there from the office. Being close to Bella meant being close to Alice while she was in labor. Just as he'd observed at Bella's birth, human births were quite messy. And loud! He didn't remember Renee cursing so vehemently or loudly when she'd been in labor. He'd been greatly amused when Jasper had come into the room, frantic for his wife, and she'd started tearing into him, cursing him for doing this to her, and generally releasing all of her pain and fear and adrenaline onto him. Anything that made Jasper uncomfortable made Edward happy, and the other man had been quite uncomfortable. Edward couldn't stop the full smile from spreading across his lips as he remembered the blond man's anxiety while Alice pushed.

"It's good to meet you both. Bella speaks so highly of you, Alice. And based on what she says, young Austin here hung both the stars and the moon."

Austin seemed to interpret this smile as being for him, because he reached for Edward, straining out his mother's arms to grasp his shirt. Edward grinned and took the little boy in his arms, swinging him around gently, causing them both to laugh. He stopped when he'd rotated a full 360 degrees, seeing the stunned faces of Bella's family.

"What?"

Bella's jaw worked silently for a moment. She seemed to find her voice again, telling him, "Edward, Austin doesn't like anyone strange. Anyone! I've never seen him so friendly with a stranger before." She crooked her eyebrow at him, wondering if he'd poked around in her little cousin's mind the way he'd poked around hers as a child. Was that why Austin took so quickly to her love? Or was it just one of those things?

The sheepish look he returned to her told her everything she needed to know. Good God! How many impressionable minds had he flitted around in while they were separated? She glowered at him, hoping he'd get the message that he had a lot to explain, before she brought her fingertips to Austin's ribs.

"Guess who's here, Austin?" she asked in a sing-song voice as she started to tickle him.

The little boy's eyes grew wide. He squirmed around in Edward's arms, trying to laugh and get away from her at the same time. "Tha..tha," he gasped, "Tickle Monsta?" He squealed as she dove in and pinned him against her love's chest with her fluttering fingertips.

"Did I hear that right?" A voice called down from the top of the stairs. "Is the Tickle Monster here, Austin?"

Bella could see Jasper's feet on the staircase now, and as he walked down, she saw the cherub-faced Chloe in his arms. The little girl was the spitting image of her father; blonde hair, captivating blue eyes, graceful nose. If Austin was the male version of Alice's features, Chloe was the tiny female version of Jasper. Bella wondered if the personalities were as evenly split, or if the newest addition would be a balance of the two parents. Austin so far seemed more like Emmett than either of his parents.

"Yes," she answered for his son, who was still laughing uncontrollably in Edward's arms, "the Tickle Monster has arrived!" She mock-growled at Austin and then made her way over to Jasper, who'd reached the bottom of the stairs. "And how is little Chloe?" she cooed at the little girl. Chloe responded by holding her arms out to Bella, silently asking to be held. Bella acquiesced and gathered her god-daughter into her arms.

"Edward," she called out, "this precious little one is Chloe, Austin's baby sister." She moved Chloe's hand gently to make her wave at Edward. "And this," she nodded towards Jasper, "is Jasper, Alice's husband, and a long-time friend of mine and Emmett's."

Jasper strode forward, extended his hand out to Edward. Edward's jaw clenched. _Polite._ He reminded himself. _Polite. For Bella. _He shifted Austin to his left arm and met Jasper's handshake, restraining himself from emulating Emmett and attempting to crush the other man's hand. This was no pissing contest. Jasper had chosen Alice, married her, was deliriously happy with her and their children. What had happened between this man and _his_ love back in high school and college was the past. "Jasper." He nodded his head as they shook hands, not quite in control enough to grind out the lie of 'good to meet you.'

Bella noticed the curt greeting and shot him a warning look. He'd mentioned in their three weeks together how jealous he'd been of the boys she'd experimented with in high school and college, and she'd sympathized; she had no idea how she would've fared if their places had been reversed and she'd had to watch the reason for her existence make out, and have sex with, other people. She had not, however, dwelled on the topic enough to realize that Jasper might be a sore spot for Edward. Obviously he was. And Jasper would recognize Edward's attitude, but be unable to understand it. Fantastic.

She rubbed noses with Chloe, and handed the little girl back to her dad, as Edward set Austin down so the squirming ball of energy could run around a bit. Bella slid into his side and wrapped an arm around his waist. She leaned up so that her mouth was close to Edward's ear, and whispered low, so only he could hear her. "I just realized why you got so tense around Jasper. And I swear to God, if you aren't polite and civil, I'll make your life miserable for an undetermined amount of time. That was the past, something I don't think about anymore, and I doubt he does, either."

He turned his head to answer her, pulling her closer as he did. Her body felt so good against his. Any excuse he could find to mold his frame to hers, he took. "I promise, my love, that I will be on my best behavior. I will endeavor to pretend that I did not have to watch him put his hands on you years ago, kiss you, or watch him undress you…I will instead spend my time plotting ways to make our time together immeasurably pleasurable." He gently kissed her now flushed cheek, and chuckled when he noticed how much more rapidly her heart was beating.

He didn't bother trying to hide his shit-eating grin when she gave him a hard smack on the ass. He waggled his eyebrows at her playfully, trying to lighten the mood, since they were still surrounded by her family. Specifically, her giant older brother. Honestly, how had the Swans managed that? The family's standard answer to that question—and it was frequent question—was that Emmett took after his grandfather Swan, who'd been a big man. Bella was slim and petite; she only just came up to his shoulder. Her brother looked more like he'd grown up pounding iron on a blacksmith's anvil, not to mention his height. Edward couldn't recall seeing pictures of Grandpa Swan. He'd have to ask Bella to dig through old photo albums to see what the man looked like.

* * *

Edward leaned back in his chair, completely stuffed with food. Two plates of turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce (canned _and_ homemade, thankyouverymuch), mashed potatoes, winter squash, homemade applesauce and sweet potato soufflé, and he had no idea how he'd crammed it all in. He was pretty sure he could pass out and lapse into unconsciousness with no problem.

Looking around the table, he saw that the other men were in similar positions, leaning back in their chairs, legs spread in front of them, hands contentedly resting on their stomachs. No wonder, he reflected, Thanksgiving was the holiday of holidays for this family. He hadn't truly appreciated the feast they sat down to until he could take part himself.

He sighed with a bit of nostalgia. This was the time of the evening when, in the past, he would've settled down "on" Jasper and harassed the other man with feelings of guilt and angst. It'd become his own personal Thanksgiving tradition over the past several years, and he rather missed it. He caught Alice looking at her husband doubtfully, and followed her gaze to the man he was trying not to hate. Well, trying to act like he didn't hate, anyway. Jasper had an apprehensive expression on his face, as though he were expecting something.

Wait. Expecting something.

Jasper was waiting for the onslaught.

Pure glee flowed through Edward as he realized how thoroughly he'd trained the blond to expect misery on Thanksgiving. His only regret now was that he couldn't keep up the tradition. Nonetheless, the satisfied expression was still on his face, he knew.

He knew, because he caught Bella looking at him speculatively. She too, knew of Jasper's Thanksgiving issues—they all did, probably—and in watching him watching Jasper, then grinning, she started drawing some conclusions. Her chosen mate, her life-long love! Was an incorrigible shit who had been, she knew now, making Jasper miserable for years.

She suddenly thought of all the times he'd grown lightheaded while they'd been making out in high school. All the times he'd inexplicably become nauseated. The anxiety attacks.

Son. of. a. bitch.

Edward knew he was in trouble when he saw her face set and her gaze turn icy. As much as he loved her, he didn't think that in this incarnation she appreciated his sense of justice and humor. He'd be mighty uncomfortable later, he was sure. He smiled lazily at her and winked, figuring if he was in for a pinch, he was in for a pound. Might as well make the upcoming punishment worth it.

Past experience told him that he might as well buy a grave marker _now_, but he was feeling cheeky and satisfied and ignored the little voice telling him to pull her aside and grovel. It was a voice he'd paid no attention to for many, many years now, and it had little pull on him.

He wondered if his body could handle some pie yet. He'd been waiting decades to try them. He wanted to sample them before Bella borrowed her father's service revolver—which he knew for a fact Charlie had trained her to use, taking her to shooting ranges as a girl—and tested his statement about quick healing. He caught Emmett eyeing the table where Esme's pie sat, too. He quirked his eyebrow in question. Were they allowed dessert yet? He had no memory of how much time the family usually left between dinner and dessert.

Bella got up and started collecting dishes. Apparently no pie yet. Charlie and Carlisle got up with her and waved her down, telling her that she and the other women had cooked, therefore she needed to relax while the men cleaned up. Taking the hint, the younger men stood up and continued collecting dishes to bring them into the kitchen.

The pies were every bit as divine as they smelled. Better. Edward was supremely happy.

Well, he would've been supremely happy if he hadn't ticked off his love. As it was, he was mostly happy and a little—more than a little, truthfully—bit afraid of what she had in store for him later. He tried to gauge the damage when he came up behind her and slipped his arms around her, resting his cheek against her temple.

She stiffened, annoyed that he'd try to be so cute and affectionate when he knew she was mad at him. Did he really think that being adorable was going to get him off the hook? Just then, though, she caught Emmett observing them thoughtfully, and so she gave into her body's urge to sink into him. He really did feel good wrapped around her like this. And she didn't want her brother thinking there was trouble in paradise.

She sighed and turned so that she was facing him slightly. "Edward, Aengus, my love," she whispered, "I'm going to be nice while we have observers. Then I'm going to beat you within an inch your life later." She turned full into him to rest forehead to forehead. "Dead." She murmured. "You are so dead."

He ran his hands up and down her upper arms and enjoyed the contact while he could. "I'm sorry to have upset you, my heart. I know we'll talk later, and I promised I will listen and answer your questions. For now, though, can you pretend you don't hate me?" He felt her nod. Good enough for now. He squeezed her shoulders and kissed her forehead. "Back into the lion's den?"

She nodded her assent, and went off to find Alice and Rose, who'd claimed her for post-food activities.

Alice pounced on her. "Bella, we're going upstairs, and I'm going to interrogate you. Rose is going to help, and you're going to cooperate. Got it?" Her body was practically vibrating with energy; Bella couldn't understand how someone so little could eat as much turkey as she had and not be knocked out by the tryptophan. She herself could barely move.

She considered fighting her cousin on this, but decided to give in. Who knew how long it would be before they saw each other in person again after this trip? And at least she was honest. When they were younger Alice would've gone the trickery-and-subterfuge route.

"Alright, Alice. I'll concede to torture and interrogation this time. However, I reserve the right to sleep in and skip the holiday sales with you tomorrow morning. I'm still jet-lagged and there is no way in hell you're going to wake me up at four a.m. to drive to Port Angeles for shopping. Got it?" She stood up a little straighter, trying to give the impression of authority. It probably wouldn't work, but a girl had to try, didn't she?

Alice's eyes rounded and she looked like she was one step away from a full pout. "Bella, don't I find amazing gifts for you when we shop? Aren't the outfits I buy the outfits that you turn to when you want to look extra special and show off your natural good looks? Aren't they good enough for you, Bella? Aren't _I_ good enough?" While she'd been trying to lay on the guilt, Alice had approached her, and had laid her hand on Bella's upper arm entreatingly.

Fighting the urge to out right roll her eyes, Bella placed her hand over her cousin's and instead forced her eyes to water a bit. Crying on demand was a talent of hers. She assumed it had something to do with the fact that she cried-unwillingly-almost whenever she had a very strong emotional reaction to something. Very angry? Tears. Very sad? Tears. Very happy? Tears. Super nostalgic? Tears. It was ridiculous. But, over active tear ducts also meant that she could turn on the misty eyes or a full blown crying fit when she needed to. She'd gotten Em into loads of trouble as children with this talent.

"Alice," she started in a low voice, "you don't love me, do you? My body is in a different time zone right now, and you still want me up at four a.m.?" She allowed a slight tremble into her voice. "I thought you'd be understanding, Alice." She unleashed the full power of her big brown eyes on her cousin, silently thanking her own attendance in the JMIT 'classes' as a youngster. She was nearly as skilled as Alice was.

She wondered, as she and Alice had a silent contest of wills, how her JMIT guilt training would go over on Edward. He was made of different stuff than mere mortals. She hadn't had the opportunity or the need to guilt him into anything since they'd reunited. They'd been so busy with house-hunting and wild monkey sex and working and reunion sex and getting to know each other all over again and sex in each room and meeting with the solicitor that there had been no time for such shenanigans.

About the time that she realized she was going to lose the battle to keep the self-satisfied 'I'm in love and can't hide it' smile off of her face, Alice stomped her foot and spat out, "Fine! You win! No four a.m. wake-up for you tomorrow. God, I can't believe I had you sit in on Aunt Rachel's JMIT classes. If I had known what a monster you'd turn out to be, I would've banned you from the house when she visited!" The expression of mock rage on her face set Bella and Rose both off, and they collapsed into giggles.

Rose slowed her giggles into chuckles. "You just don't like being out maneuvered, little Imp." She turned to Bella with an expression of newfound respect on her face. Her blue eyes twinkled. "I didn't know you had it in you, Bella. _Now_ I know why Emmett bitches about the hold you had on your parents growing up. How much shit did you blame on him with those powers?"

Bella tried to feign innocence, she really did. She failed miserably, however. "A lot. I'm surprised he still talks to me, sometimes. He did give as good as he got, though." She laughed to herself, remembering the skill that Emmett had developed in retaliation-the art of subtly ratting her out to her parents whenever she did anything remotely trouble-worthy. Never the type to just run up to their parents and tattle, he'd taken the track of asking seemingly innocent questions of their parents to raise their internal alarm, and then unobtrusively pointing them in her direction, or ensuring that they overheard him on the phone with a friend as he discussed how worried about or disappointed in his sister he was.

She offered her hand to her cousin. "Deal. I'll take your interrogation with good humor and you let me sleep in tomorrow morning. Past seven, Alice! I don't want you having any hand in waking me up before seven in the morning." She watched in delight as Alice's face fell a bit.

"You were going to wake me up at four-thirty, weren't you?"

Alice nodded and sighed. "I was. But for the price of a peaceful interrogation, I'll spare you tomorrow morning. Rose, Mom and I will have to brave the shops on our own." She sounded so glum Bella almost offered to accompany them. Almost.

The three women went upstairs to Bella's childhood room, which had been converted into Renee's sewing room during one of her mother's fits of creativity.

As soon as Rose shut the door behind them Alice pushed Bella onto her childhood bed, sat down next to her, and started in. "Full name and social security number."

Bella's lips twitched. "Isabella Marie Swan. And you already have my social memorized, Alice. Why do I need to repeat it to you?"

"Bella! You brat! You know what I mean! Now spill. And don't be a smart ass." Alice huffed and rolled her eyes over toward Rosalie, who was sitting cross-legged in front of the bedroom door, trying to look like she wasn't guarding it against Bella's escape.

Rose just grinned and winked at Bella. "Well, Alice you didn't specify. She could've very well repeated _your_ full name and social. It would've met your demand." Her blue eyes were twinkling. She'd picked up Emmett's habit of teasing Alice as soon as she'd gotten accustomed to his family, much to Alice's frustration and Bella and Emmett's delight. Their cousin was just so pushy; it was nice to have someone else give her grief on occasion. Rose made it up to Alice by being the shopping companion Bella had never been and Alice had always wanted.

Alice focused on Bella, who imagined that she could feel her cousin's laser-beam eyes picking her brain. "Now, Bella. About Edward. I want his full name, address, social security number, occupation, family history, and the story of how you met. Go." She settled in, getting comfortable, and obviously expecting a story.

"You know Alice, I don't think they have social security numbers in Ireland." Bella's eyes glittered mischievously.

"Bella!"

"Fine, fine. Edward Anthony Masen. I'm not giving you his mailing address because you're scary, but County Meath. Occupation is Mah Lovah. His family history could take days and days to tell. It's like a soap opera and I can't keep it all straight. But he's pretty frank about the fact he's the product of his father's infidelity. And his mother's, actually, from what he tells me. A much older half-sibling raised him at first."

Edward and she had gone over this ahead of time. They had details, names, ages, etc., for family members, but they both figured less was more at first. And there was the added bonus that being a bastard was still kinda of a sensitive subject, and not one many people would drill into you for for information. They'd argued about the Masen name, she thinking it didn't sound particularly Irish (truth be told, she'd wanted an O'Shea or O'Reilly or a nice 'Mc'Something) but he'd pointed out that there were masons everywhere, and that the spelling could be related back to a stubborn ancestor fighting with his father and changing his surname by a letter out of spite. Also, it seemed, in a past incarnation a Masen in County Kildare had been especially helpful to them, and he wanted to honor the family by taking their name.

"Masen?" Rose interrupted. "What kind of Irish name is that? Shouldn't it be O'Shaughnessy or Llewellyn or McCool or something?" She shook her head in mock disappointment. "Honestly Bella, if you're going to come home with a hot Irishman, couldn't he at least have a fantastically Irish name?" She couldn't manage to keep her face straight toward the end, and ruined her complaint with a big laugh.

Bella, however, did manage to arrange her features so that she looked serious. "I'm disappointed, Rose. You'd think being a world traveler like you are, and being exposed to so many different ideas you'd look past the stereotypes and understand that Irish surnames are more than "Mc" and "O'" and double "L's." At this point, Bella was quoting Edward's side of their name argument almost verbatim. "If you'd seen all the stonework and stone and brick buildings in Ireland, you'd know that there must have been quite a demand for masons back in the day. Edward's name is just as Irish as Finn McCool!" She bit her tongue, hard, trying not to laugh.

Rose rolled her eyes. "Point taken! Stop avoiding! How'd you two lovebirds meet?"

"Well, it was toward the end of my planned stay. I was bundled up, writing, not far from the bend of the Boyne River, next to a big rock I sometimes used as a prop. He saw me writing and came over to me. We didn't talk much, but I shared my sandwich with him and we...we kind of bonded. Anyway, it wasn't a very talkative meeting, but it was our first meeting." Of course, she omitted the part where he'd been a huge swan who'd creeped her out, and she'd fed him bread from her sandwich in an effort to appease him, because she'd thought the huge swan was eyeballing her in a bid for food. She also skipped over the part where he'd come into her room that night, all man, and they'd had wild monkey sex.

"We went on a long walk the next day, and he acted as my tour guide through Newgrange, entertaining me with stories of the Tuatha Dé Danann and the history of Newgrange. It was fun. I'd already immersed myself in the Irish myth cycles and was pretty familiar with the different stories, but he tells them so well, it's like he's there participating himself. He'll flesh out the stories with extra dialogue, do voices, hand gestures. I think he's born out of time." She couldn't resist tossing in that line. "He should be a professional storyteller, go around to the different towns and share the legends with new generations. I can just imagine him in a past life as the clan historian or bard, reciting from memory feats of legend." She sighed, completely taken with the idea. Of course, the other two women couldn't know that she did actually have snippets of memory of Edward doing exactly that; he'd been a bard during one of their joint incarnations long ago.

She thought about the day after they'd reconnected. She'd fallen asleep in his arms, worn out from their lovemaking, and had woken up totally confused for a moment. _"Wha-?"_ She'd thought when she'd gone to stretch out her limbs only to realize that she was flush up against a very warm body. She'd twisted to take a look at this surprise body in her bed, seen the gorgeous bronzey-auburn of his hair, and had the previous night's revelations and activity flood her memory. _"Oh."_ He had still been asleep, and she'd contented herself with watching him breathe, with examining the perfect lines and angles of his face, with musing over the light shining on and reflecting in his disheveled hair.

When he'd woken up under her staring, she'd been captivated by the swirling green of his eyes. She'd thought that maybe she ought to be weirded out by the fact that his irises were not static in the way that a normal person's were, but in constant movement, the green looking more like a liquid that was constantly being stirred and moved than like colored muscles that controlled the pupil. They'd made love again that morning, and after breakfast to refuel, had gone on their walk around Newgrange.

Many of the stories he told she'd already read during the course of her research, but he also told her stories that hadn't made it into the mythological cycles. When he'd been sure they were out of eyesight of strangers, he'd allowed the four birds to circle around his head—they annoyed her to no end and she was glad when he dismissed them—he'd told her what it was like to fight the Milesians and then to live in the sidh, apart from the world of men, to see their stories and memories reduced down to that of "fairy" folk who lived underground and tormented men. "As if," he'd groused, "we had nothing better to do than screw with people. We may not be worshiped as gods anymore, but it's really, really irritating that modern folks seem to think that the residents of the Otherworld are tiny, cute little Tinkerbells who flit around on gossamer wings and spend all our time harassing poor farmers and tricking mortals."

"Bella! Bel-la!" Alice grinned as she waved her hands in front of Bella's face. "Back to the present, dream-girl. I take it from that expression that it was a good walk?" Her cousin had a knowing look on her face and a grin that the Cheshire cat would be envious of.

Bella nodded and blushed. Their walk had ended with another round of sex and lovemaking, but these two didn't necessarily need to know that. Instead, she offered, "Alice, by the time we'd finished discussing the relative morality of Midir pursuing Étain when he was already married, I was completely smitten with Edward." She'd been completely smitten with him when she'd felt his lips on her face the preceding night, actually, but she couldn't tell them that.

Alice's eyes glazed over slightly at the unfamiliar names, but she recovered quickly. She shared a look with Rose, and then lean closer to Bella and asked in a pseudo conspiratorial voice, "So, how is he in bed?"

Bella didn't bother to temper the shit eating smile that spread across her face at the question. "Earth shattering." She answered simply.

"Bella!" Rose's surprised exclamation echoed in the room for a second before both she and Alice tackled their friend into the bed.

"Bella, I've waited our whole adult lives for you to find someone who rocked your world! I'm so excited! You're getting married, right? I can see it on your face, how much you love him, and it's obvious that he worships the ground you walk on. And for you to really appreciate sex now the way we're meant to! It's about time!" Alice was jumping up and down on the bed now, and Bella was amazed. She would've thought that two kids and three decades of life would have precluded bed-jumping, but apparently news this epic couldn't be received any other way, because with a giggle, Rose—calm, reserved, poised _Rose—_dragged Bella up to a standing position on the bed and joined the small raven-haired woman in jumping up and down.


	3. Chapter 3

Emmett's head rocked back to rest on the back of the couch so he could look at the ceiling. "What on earth are girls _doing_ up there? It sounds like they have a herd of elephants in Bella's room!"

Emmett and Jasper paused the game they were playing—Edward had no interest in learning how to play video games quite yet, though he suspected he'd enjoy it, and already planned on buying one of each console system when he and Bella went back home—and Jasper and Edward emulated Emmett, resting their heads back to stare at the ceiling in confusion.

For a moment, Edward allowed himself to hate having the same reaction as Jasper. He didn't want anything in common with the man, and their synchronous head movement to stare at the ceiling annoyed him.

He missed being able to tweak the other man's emotions. He loved being able to connect to his Bella and love her as she should be loved, but now he needed a new way to vent the frustrations he was sure he'd encounter. He wondered who he could goad, now that he was limited to physical interactions. That would be a point of consideration for a later time.

He glanced over at Emmett. He was slightly shocked that Bella's brother hadn't made an earnest attempt at dismembering him as soon as the three younger men were left to their own devices. With the girls upstairs gossiping, Esme and Renee in the kitchen probably gossiping—who was he kidding, they were planning his and Bella's nuptials—and Carlisle and Charlie in the basement discussing fly fishing, Edward had fully expected his future brother-in-law to launch into him. Instead the big man had studiously ignored him.

This rather disappointed Edward. He had some affection for Emmett for all the years he'd taken care of Bella when he'd been unable to do so himself, starting with the day Bella was born and Emmett promised Charlie he'd always look after his baby sister. Edward wanted to get the machismo territory crap over with so he could enjoy his time here with Bella and relax into the trip. But no, Emmett was playing strong, silent, and intimidating. Great.

The noises from upstairs continued.

Jasper wrinkled his forehead. "Is that...ok, so it sounds like the headboard hitting the wall, or furniture being moved, or something like that." His head snapped down and he looked at the other two with what was a mixture of horror, disbelief, and fascination. "It doesn't really sound like the headboard, does it? Because, what could the girls be doing up there..." He trailed off. "You know what, I don't want to know. I'll just shut up now. Game, Emmett?" He gestured toward the paused game on the television screen.

Edward forced a casual, friendly smile. He wanted to rip into Jasper for even suggesting _anything _sexual about his Bella.

Pleasant mental image or not.

"Alice and Rose were taking Bella upstairs to interrogate her about me. Maybe they're torturing her?" He listened carefully. It really did sound like the headboard of Bella's childhood bed was hitting the wall behind it and like the legs of said bed were clunking down on the hardwood floor of her room. He didn't like to think about how he knew those sounds in this house he'd not physically been in before. And he couldn't think about how Jasper could identify those sounds, either, not if he were going to allow the other man to live.

Emmett looked thoughtful. "You know what it really sounds like? It sounds like it used to when Alice and Bella would jump up and down on her her bed. Man, Renee used to get so pissed! Watch this." He twisted around so that he was facing the door between the living room and the kitchen, where Renee and Esme were chatting over tea. "Hey MOM!" He bellowed.

Renee's voice came floating back to them. "Emmett, honestly. You could get up and come talk to me."

"Come in here for a minute!" He yelled back, not moving.

They heard the sound of chairs scraping across the linoleum and both women walked in with amused expressions on their faces. "What is it, Emmett? I really think that by now-" She cut off when she heard the ruckus from above them. Edward couldn't decide if Renee looked mad or amused. All he knew is that she huffed and headed for the staircase. Was Bella in _trouble_? Wasn't she too old for that? Jumping on the bed or not?

Emmett beamed. "Getting Bella in trouble with Renee never gets old."

"What are you, Em, twelve?" Jasper shook his head. "And it's not like Bella's going to get grounded or anything."

"Yeah, but I bet Renee will get her to drag the Christmas decorations out of the attic before she leaves us again-" At this point, Emmett scowled at Edward "-and you know how much Bella hates it up there. She's always terrified of the spiders."

Esme clucked her tongue and swatted Emmett on the top of his head. "Young man, you know full well the three of you will be in the attic with the spiders this weekend fishing out the Christmas decorations. And whichever of you isn't in the attic will be stringing the lights outside this house and ours."

"Aunt Esme!"

"Mom!"

Emmett and Jasper whined to the quiet woman at the same time. Edward saw the tug of a smile on her face as she tried to look serious. He decided that the wiser course of action on his part would be to keep his mouth shut. He thought perhaps he ought to volunteer for the attic run to keep from exposing his ignorance on how to go about hanging lights on a house, but he could take care of that later, when the subject came up and duties were being divvied up.

Edward liked Esme. To the same degree that he was annoyed by the existence of Jasper, he admired and appreciated Esme. When Bella had been growing up, her aunt really had been a second mother to her, filling in the "mother" gaps that Renee missed. While Renee was excellent at crafty projects and planning excursions and field trips for the small fry and introducing them to new ideas and new ways to view the world, she had been abysmal at mothering duties that involved the PTA, cookies, or cupcakes.

With Esme and Carlisle living close by, the two women had more or less divided up some of those mom-type duties: whenever there was a school field trip for the three, Renee went. If ever they wanted to see the dinosaur bones at the Burke Museum in Seattle, ride the ferries, or make tipis in the backyard, Renee was the adult they asked. On the other hand, if they needed a plate of cupcakes to share for their class, a parent to keep abreast of the PTA's agenda and projects, or a snuggley afghan for their bed, Esme was their woman. They both mothered in different ways, and Edward was deeply grateful that his Bella had had the love of both women while she'd been growing up. He knew from hearing conversations between Bella, Emmett, and Alice, that the three of them agreed with his assessment; from the time they were old enough to write, all three had been giving both women mother's day cards on that holiday.

The noise from Bella's room stopped about the time Edward estimated Renee had made it to the top of the stairs. With nothing to distract them, Jasper nudged Emmett "Ready to go again? We have some Nazis to kill!" Emmett nodded his assent and the game fired back up.

Edward was back to boredom. He was doing his best to pretend Jasper didn't exist, Emmett was pretending, except for a scowl here and there, that Edward didn't exist, and Jasper had given up on being the peace broker. He wondered if Emmett was ignoring him for the same reason he was ignoring Jasper; that acknowledgment would necessitate violence. He allowed himself to grin. He did have limitations, funneling his energies into a human body, but he was far more durable than the average human. He looked forward to the seemingly inevitable confrontation with the big man. It could be fun.

Bella sighed as the men walked outside to string the lights on the outside of the house. Two days after the Thanksgiving feast, and no progress. The tension there was palpable, but nothing had happened (yet) so she couldn't take anyone to task. Still, it was painfully obvious that Emmett was only tolerating Edward's presence, and Edward himself wasn't doing a great job of trying to make friends with anyone other than Carlisle or Charlie, which only seemed to make Emmett think Edward was a brown-noser, sucking up the paternal influences. Poor Jasper just looked baffled at Edward's attitude. She was pretty sure this was the first time in his life that Jasper's natural charisma and ability to soothe people wasn't winning someone over.

_If only Jasper knew why._ She hesitated at that thought. She could tell Alice and maybe even Jasper that Edward knew about her and Jazz in high school, and had some ridiculous machismo retro-jealousy going. It might explain his attitude problem.

No, that wouldn't work. She'd just have to convince Edward to make an effort to befriend his peers in this family. She wrinkled her forehead. After her conversation with Edward, there would be no befriending of Jasper any time soon. As if it were _Jasper's_ fault that she'd been curious as a teenager, and had sought out a friend she trusted and wanted to experiment with. She got that Edward had been tortured by that period in her life, she did. She understood that it'd ripped him apart to see her with Jasper over and over again as she learned about her body, and about a man's body with him. She _understood. _She also understood that the love of her life was being ridiculous about carrying out Jasper's "punishments" for so many years past the time of their actual arrangement. He and Alice had been together for ten years now; married for five of those years. And yet he'd continued to torment poor Jasper until the time she'd gone to Ireland seven months ago. It was too much.

Inhuman sense of justice, territory, and anger or not, Edward had carried his torment of Jasper too far. She knew that she'd probably never convince him he'd been out of line for the past ten years, but she still felt the need to impress upon him that she was half at fault for the inadvertent torture she'd put the man of her dreams through. He seemed bent on laying it all on the shoulders of her blond cousin-in-law.

She needed to talk to him about this, she knew. What she wanted to do was give him the cold shoulder. Punish him, a little, for hurting her friend over and over for so many years. What she'd done instead was round on him after they'd turned in for bed in her old room. She'd pointed to the maroon overstuffed recliner that had replaced her old rocking chair when Renee claimed this room as a sewing room. _"I'll sleep on the recliner. I'm small enough to sleep on it comfortably. You can take the bed. I'm so disappointed right now, Edward. I can't even...how could you? How could you hurt Jasper for so long? Do you know just how miserable this holiday has been for him for the past ten years? Miserable for Alice? For me? Do you really understand how awful _I _felt whenever he'd get sick or anxious after we'd fool around in high school?"_ She saw his face tighten at that question._"How is it right, when I sought him out in school? When I was half the reason we were doing anything at all. I don't understand." _She'd thrown her hands up in frustration. _"What the hell, Edward?"_

He had walked forward and cupped her face in both of his hands. With the heat of his hands on either side of her face making her feel safe and loved and warm, it had taken all of her indignation and willpower not to just melt into him. She was mad, damn it. He wasn't going to get out of this with just one gesture. He had gently tilted her head up so that they were staring in each other's eyes. She was mesmerized by his eyes. _"I was thinking that my wife was letting some child touch her in ways that only I should be able to touch her. I was thinking that this man-child you were experimenting with needed to earn the right to be with someone as amazing as yourself. Alice's feelings or his were not my concern. You were. Only you."_

She could see the hurt in the whirling forest green eyes of his. The hurt broke her heart. She knew then he'd never understand why she was angry. She was fighting a loosing battle. _"I know you won't agree when I say this. But to me, that only explains what you did to him when we were still fooling around. I still don't understand making him miserable so often when I was around him after he and Alice got together." _

His lips touched her forehead briefly. _"He still hadn't earned the right to have ever touched you."_ His face twisted. _"He still hasn't. I'll do no more, though, because you request it."_

She quirked her eyebrow. _"Because you can't now, you mean."_

He shook his head. _"The manner of torment would only change, now, if I were to continue. I cannot twist his emotions or his gut, but it is still easy to make someone miserable in more conventional ways. I will not do that, however, because you ask that I stop."_

She had allowed herself in lean into the comforting warmth of his big hands encompassing her face. She took a deep breath._"For tonight, Edward, I'm sleeping on the recliner. I need some time to adjust to who you really are, what you think is ok to do, our differing senses of justice. I still have an idealized version of you in my head and I need to reconcile the two. I can't take that time to think while I'm wrapped around you in bed."_ Her hands had traveled up, to rest over his and to give a small squeeze. _"I love you. I just need a few feet between us right now. For tonight."_

Following through on her need for a little space and crawling into the recliner for sleep was one of the hardest things she'd ever done. With Edward just four feet away, in bed, face open and pained, watching her, she'd almost ignored her own need and slipped into bed with him to sooth his need. That was exactly what she would've done when she was younger. But she knew herself well enough to know that she'd been telling him the truth when she said she needed a some space to take all this in. She knew she'd be doing herself, and ultimately him, a disservice if she always sublimated her own needs for his. So she had pulled the lever on the side of the recliner that kicked out the foot rest, pushed the back as far down as it would go, pulled the afghan up around her, and closed her eyes to get lost in thought.

She knew she would be spending the rest of this life trying to wrap her head around his sense of justice. Would she suddenly understand it when Bella died and she was Cáer again?

She knew she would be spending the rest of this life loving and being frustrated by this god masquerading as a man.

She promised herself that she'd never take his love, a little over possessive or not, for granted; she'd been alone her whole life, had waited so long to kiss him, to be with him, to feel complete, to breathe. There was no way her irritation over his Jasper attitude could ruin it. Nonetheless, his cavalier attitude about so tormenting someone for over a decade bothered her. She kept having to remind herself that he wasn't born into her ideals and morals, and that - as a deity who was accustomed to getting what he wanted, had lived for eons and was insanely territorial, crafty, and mischievous - what he thought was justified would be what she thought overboard and cruel.

They'd be butting their heads over such concerns for decades, she was sure.

It was worth it. He was worth everything.

Neither of them had rested well that night; she had eventually drifted off and slept fitfully. When she'd woken up yesterday morning, she'd padded across the room and curled up in the bed next to him, her head on his shoulder in its customary place. She'd been immediately engulfed in the cocoon of warmth his body had created in the sheets, and had drifted off again for an early morning nap, his head tilted toward hers, his arm curled around her as best it could with her on it. He too had succumbed to sleep once she was in her rightful spot next to him and the peace found in that place of in-between soothed both.

Yesterday had been normal for them. Well, what she thought normal for them while surrounded by people. They couldn't fool around as they wanted, but they'd sneak in kisses and caresses between the boy's trips up into the attic and Esme and Alice's decorating instructions.

A Jasper and Edward friendship was a lost cause, she realized. There was an inkling of hope that over the years Edward would thaw out, but she wouldn't make any plans on that. Bella's goal now was to convince Emmett to accept the friendly overtures she was talking Edward into making. Emmett would be a tough sell, however. Her big brother had taken her aside yesterday and demanded she explain herself.

_Why was she leaving the family? Why couldn't Edward move here? Was she aware of how fishy it sounded to him that she happened to bring home a man by the same name as the hero in her first book—was she even in love with Edward, or just the idea of him? How did she expect to be an active part in Austin and Chloe's lives all the way over in Ireland? _That question had been a low blow. _Did Edward have a job? _He'd avoided directly answering that question up to that point, and so had Bella. Before coming to visit the family they'd decided to stick with simple: his family was independently wealthy, and he was an investor. In an earlier incarnation, he'd been a banker, and thanks to immense amounts of free time whilst flitting in and out of her head and hovering around her for thirty years, he had garnered some knowledge of modern business practices. As he had mentioned, "I went to college right along with you, and you were two credits shy of a dual major with Business Administration and Communication." With these experiences, he felt he could handle general questions about that aspect of business. Being independently wealthy would mean he wasn't a gold digger, attached to Bella because of the money she'd made from her books. That should assuage some of Emmett's fears.

Somehow, though, when the subject of his gainful employment came up, they'd both answered with joking answers. "Mah Lovah" had been her response to Alice—and it was true!—and "exotic dancer" had been his well-received (by the women in the family) answer to Renee's query. Apparently this joking attitude and lack of response had raised the red flag for her older brother, and he latched onto it.

_Is that even his name, Bella? It's too convenient that his name is Edward, too, like your character. What did he do, stalk you at Drogheda and Newgrange to get your attention?Did he know who you were before he approached you? How does he expect to take care of you?_

Emmett's questions and accusations had swirled around her, and she'd totally lost her temper. She regretted the things she'd said in response, digging up ancient history between them, accusing him of wanting to keep her twelve forever, for not loving her enough to let her grow up, of being too narrow-minded to see how happy she was. She could have, and should have, approached his questions in a totally different manner.

But she hadn't, and now they were barely being civil to one another.

For the time being, the "Emmett and Bella" relationship was...up in flames? Sunk like the _Titanic_? More damaged than the _Lusitania_? Bella tried not to be so melodramatic in her thoughts, but it was the biggest fight she'd had with her brother in her adulthood, and internal melodrama was hard to avoid.

Hard to avoid unless you had Esme for an aunt and Alice for a cousin. The two women were hell bent on having each house meticulously decorated for Christmas before Bella and Edward flew back to Ireland, which meant that the two small tyrants were running everyone ragged. Carlisle, Charlie, Renee, Rose, and Emmett all had regular full-time jobs to go back to come Monday, so Tyrant One and Tyrant Two had everyone busy over the weekend with the idea that the reduced work force of Bella and Edward had less to tackle in the coming week.

"Bella!" Her aunt successfully pulled Bella from her thoughts.

"Yes, Aunt Esme?"

"Come on, dear. Alice and Edward have finished up in the den. We're tackling the family room next, and we need all four of us in there to finish before dinner."

Bella followed her aunt into the other room and let herself get lost in the world of decorating tyrants, Edward, mistletoe, and seasonal decorations.

Edward noticed that Bella's eyes seemed unfocused. Her expression hadn't changed, she was still staring ahead, appearing to watch the movie with the rest of them, but it was obvious to him that she wasn't seeing what was in front of her at all. He watched her for almost a full minute before he bent over his beautiful Bella's head, cradled in his lap, and whispered in her ear. "Love?"

She blinked, and her whole body gave a small jerk. She felt almost as though she'd been startled awake, though she hadn't been sleeping. She'd been remembering.

Generally, she only had a few flashes here and there of the lives she'd lived with Edward. With Aengus. The only memories she had that were as clear as her own Bella memories were those of their first meeting, when he turned into a swan to join her, and that of her shock when she realized she was being reborn into a body that wasn't in Ireland. Everything else was snips and flashes and half-dreams. Just now, though, she'd relived several years of a life she'd not previously recalled. And it wasn't a particularly happy one.

Now she knew what happened when they were separated, once joined.

She remembered what happened when Aengus, even reborn as one Seamus O'Brien, left his home for too long. She'd watched the body of Seamus/Aengus wither into nothing, riddled by disease when no one else around them was. She'd watched him struggle not to be a burden on their homestead in Oklahoma as she and their children got their home up, the livestock situated, the land sowed with crops.

She remembered that he'd become weaker on the long voyage from Ireland to their new country. Everyone had assumed it was seasickness. She remembered that his healthy, hale body seeming to shrivel before her eyes as they traveled west, to where the government was opening the new territory up for settlement. She remembered their daughter trying in vain to nurse him to health; remembered their daughter doing the same for _her_ when she ceased to have any reason to live after his death.

Not knowing how long she'd been in her reverie, Bella glanced around to see Emmett and Rosalie still cozy in the giant recliner, Jasper and Alice curled around each other like cats on the couch, and her head still pillowed on Edward's lap on the love seat. No one had moved. An assessment of the movie told her that not much had happened there, either.

And yet she'd remembered a whole different life. She'd been a redhead in that life. Her name had been Maureen. Their children…

Their children. She gasped. She'd been a mother. She squeezed her eyes shut. Maureen had been a mother, not _her_, not Bella. It was the birthing pains experienced by Maureen that she recalled, not her own. Her own body had not gone through the trial and pain and joy of pregnancy and childbirth. Her own body had not experienced the devastation of a stillborn child or the joy of a child that survived a cruel world. But she knew these things all the same.

Edward watched the emotions on his heart's face as though watching a private movie. Clearly, she'd experienced something. She'd need to talk it out, he knew. He glanced outside. Still light out, still cold. But private. They could talk freely outside, with no concerned family members to eavesdrop on a conversation that couldn't possibly make sense to anyone but the two of them.

"My heart," he murmured close to her ear. "Would you like to go for a walk? Is it too cold?" He paused. "You look like you need to talk." He was unconsciously rubbing his hand back and forth along her arm, trying to comfort her from whatever it was that had her looking so shocked.

She cast her own look outside and around the room, and nodded. "I think that's a good idea."

They both got up, and at Emmett's frown and quizzical look, Bella offered, "I want to show Edward some of the old haunts, spend some time with him. We'll be back." She dismissed her brother, not giving him the time to challenge the idea or offer to come with them with a shake of her head. "Enjoy the movie, we'll be back before it gets too terribly late." Taking Edward's arm, she walked to the mud room by the front door to pull on her winter coat, gloves, scarf, and boots.

She couldn't help but drink in the sight of Edward bent over, sliding on his boots. The angle provided her with a stellar view of his perfectly formed rump, showcased nicely by the snug jeans she'd bought for him. She frowned to herself, wondering if she'd have to watch this body of his waste away, too, if they stayed away from the Emerald Isle for too long.

They walked slowly along a path she, Alice, and Emmett had long ago worn on the forest floor near her parent's house. She didn't know how to bring up what she'd dreamed. Remembered. It was almost too much, overwhelming her with memories and feelings and experiences she hadn't actually had. Except that she had, as a different person. Ugh. It was making her head hurt.

And truth be told, now that she was out from the watchful eye of her brother, she wanted to tackle Edward to the ground and let him kiss her worries away. Kiss, and caress, and stroke, and…she was letting her libido get the better of her. But who could blame her? She'd been searching for the person who could make her feel so exquisitely good her whole adult life. Now that she'd found him, she couldn't get enough, craving his touch mere seconds after their skin lost contact.

She shoved her gloved hands deep into her coat pockets and looked up at Edward, who was gracefully strolling next to her.

"I remembered Oklahoma," she said quietly.

A flicker of something passed over his face, and then it was calm and open again. "Oklahoma." He stated quietly. He turned his swirling field-green eyes on her.

"What about Oklahoma do you remember?"

"I remember emigrating from Ireland with you and our children. I remember you suffering what we all thought was seasickness on the voyage over. I remember us hearing about the land being opened up in Indian territory for settling." Her face flinched at this. Her past self, Maureen, had seen nothing wrong with that idea; modern Bella, however, having grown up with Charlie's friends on the Quileute reservation, felt residual guilt.

"I remember traveling west to get the territory in time for the land run." Her eyes grew huge with the memory. Thousands and thousands of people had gathered to stake a claim on land and a new life. When the canons had sounded at noon, and the mass of people and horseflesh had rushed forward the cloud of dust and the sounds of pounding hooves had overwhelmed her.

Her voice sank. "I remember how sick you were by the time we made it to Santa Fe station, and how stubbornly you were trying to hide it." She couldn't keep the quiver from her voice. Seamus had been a shorter, thicker man than Edward now was, with thick, curly medium brown hair that had been plastered to his face by perspiration. His sturdily built body had already been weakened when they'd reached the Santa Fe station with the other thousands of eager settlers. To keep himself in the saddle of the horse they'd bought, he'd lashed himself in.

"Guthrie."

Bella nodded. "Guthrie. I can't believe I—we-were there for that. It was empty prairie when the canons went off and the rush started. By the time we finally collapsed into our bedrolls, ten thousand people had stopped there." A deep, steadying breath, and Edward's warm arm around her shoulders kept her calm.

"We were part of the city that was founded and laid out and practically built in a day," she said with wonder.

Edward smiled down on her. His own memories of life as Seamus O'Brien were painful. His body's wasting away had started soon after leaving Ireland, starting just as queasiness and tiredness, and slowly progressing to a disease that whittled his body down to nothing over the course of months. When he'd finally died in Cáer's—well, Maureen's—arms, he'd weighed less than she had, and though hale, she hadn't been a large woman.

Even through his suffering, he'd been in awe of the new city of Guthrie, literally founded in half a day. The sea of tents that spread out across the prairie had been staggering. The smell of that many people and beasts of burden in one spot had sent his senses spinning. Even then, though, Maureen had filled his thoughts. He'd known when they staked their claim that he wouldn't survive to see the first harvest. Luckily, their son by that time was seventeen, more than old enough to work and help support his mother and sister, who was fifteen. They'd been one of the relatively few full families to take part in the first day of the rush; most had sent the husbands and fathers first, with the wives and children following the next day or week.

He squeezed Bella's shoulders, hugging her to him, grateful for his invulnerability in this form. His only fear now was that Bella's fragile human form would catch a disease or become profoundly injured.

"What else do you remember, _a ghrá_?"

She laid her head on his chest. They'd slowed to a near stop just inside the forest line near the spot where Emmett and Jacob had built a rickety tree house as children. "I remember volunteering to teach the children, being paid a little to do so by the other parents until official schools could open, with official teachers."

"I remember our children, Edward. We had children! I _remember_ them. I wonder what happened to them after I died. After Maureen died, I mean."

Her brow furrowed in concentration and turned her face up to look at him. "Were our children half-gods, then, like Hercules, since you're..." she made a vague gesture towards him.

He grinned broadly. "Since I'm the love god?" He waggled his eyebrows at her as he said this. It inevitably made her roll her eyes, his references to being the god of love in the mythological cycles. And her standard response always included-

"Ok, Cupid. You're a love god. _The_ love god, if you prefer. Stick to the topic and answer the question!"

Chuckling, he answered. "No, not half-gods. Remember, I was _Seamus_ then, born into a human body just as you are, with no memories of who I am, not Aengus-in-a-physical form like I am now." His eyes slid sideways toward her. "Any children I might father now, with you, would indeed be half-human."

Her jaw dropped and she froze. "You want children?"

He brought his hands up to her face and gently tilted it so he could look in her eyes. "My heart, I wasn't making a suggestion. I was answering the question you asked, and the question I anticipated hearing next; all the children we had together when we were both reborn into human bodies were regular humans, no different than anyone else. I thought your next question would be to ask me what would happen now, since it is a different situation, and I'm not human this time. And in this instance, any children I'd father, as I said, would be half-human, half Tuatha Dé Danann."

Her brain was a whirl. She decided to focus on one thing at a time; doing more would bring on a headache and make her cranky. "All the children we've had? There were more than the two I remember from Maureen and Seamus?"

A huge grin split across his face. "Dear one, we've been reincarnating into humans for millennia. Generations and generations and generations. And it's only been recently that humans have successfully learned to control reproduction. You've been a mother many times over in many different families and situations." He pressed his lips to her forehead, and she could feel him smiling against her skin. "Frankly, my dear," he did a horrible Rhett Butler impression, "you and I, in all our incarnations, have had a huge impact on the populations of Counties Meath, Kildare, and Dublin."

By now Bella's eyes were huge. She was sure the gears of her mind were going to grind themselves right through her skull. "My family, on both sides, though mostly Grandma Swan's side, is from that part of Ireland! That's where my ancestors are from!" She paused. "Are you telling me I'm my own ancestor, and descendant?"


	4. Chapter 4

Edward in a full-bellied laugh was a delicious sight. It reminded her that he was indeed a god who was simply taking on a human form and appearance for her sake. His whole face transformed and she was struck by the unearthly beauty there. His skin seemed to be slightly illuminated from within when he laughed. His head tilted back and the musical sound of his laugh folded around her.

Not for the first time since they were reunited earlier in the month, she was staggered by the fact that this was her life, now. He was the final puzzle piece that completed her. It was amazing that just over three weeks ago, she had felt fractured and isolated and alone in the world; even her family and her close relationships with Alice, Emmett, and Jasper hadn't helped her feel connected to life in such a way. Without this familial connection, she was sure that she would have wandered through her life with little direction. As it was, even with them in her life she'd gone through quite a stint in her college years, trying to find something—anything—to make her feel passionate. To make her feel connected. To make her feel whatever it was she was lacking. To make her _feel_.

Bella gave a mental shudder when she thought about what she'd put herself through in those college years. Brief journeys into alcohol and drugs hadn't satisfied the lack in her life. Acting had been fun, but hadn't met the end goal. Cutting...cutting hadn't lasted long. Long enough to leave scars, though. So she had settled on the pleasure she could get from men and from writing. Though she didn't consider herself promiscuous, she thought perhaps she'd had more partners than a lot of women her age. Aside from Alice, however, she had no female friends to ask or compare with. No man had sated the want, but each, coupled with writing the stories that poured out of her, filled up enough of the hole in her life that she could cope.

She knew now that what she was lacking was her mate, that what she had needed was to be reunited with Edward.

Not for the first time, she wondered how her life might have been different if she had gone through with the study abroad program in Ireland. She knew her decision to stay home and help take care of Charlie had been the right one; she didn't regret it. However, she couldn't help the nagging feeling that if she'd gone to Ireland for the semester or year once Charlie had recovered from the car accident she could have seen this glorious sight, Edward's face lit up in a laugh, nine years ago.

Her heart ached for the loss of what might have been.

Her brain, however, hadn't quite let go of the glorious sight before her. She pushed her musings to the side and faked a pout. "Are you making fun of me?"

Her breath caught in her throat as he brought his head down to meet her eyes. The actively changing green that she was staring into captured her. His face still illuminated by mirth, he drew closer to her and gathered her up in his arms so that her cheek was pressed against his chest. She felt his lips brush the top of her head.

"I am laughing at you, I'm sorry. Well, not sorry I'm laughing. I'm sorry if it bothers you."

She took in a deep breath, inhaling his scent. He smelled like home. "Mmmm." She murmured into the cloth of his coat. She felt his arms tighten around her slightly and she snaked her own arms inside his coat, wrapping them firmly around his torso.

"Mmmm?" He questioned.

"You smell good," she answered. She should get back to the topics of their reincarnating habits, past lives, of Maureen and Seamus, of the time (times?) they had incarnated into her family tree.

She should, but at the moment she just wanted to revel in the feel of Edward's arms around her, in the feeling of belonging, in the completeness. The contrast of the cooling air of a November evening in Washington with the warmth of his body pressed against her gave her goosebumps. Or perhaps, she thought, the goosebumps could simply be attributed to him. She could feel his breath ruffling her hair as he rested his chin gently on top of her head. She breathed in, in the vain hope that she could catch a bit of his breath as he breathed out.

She backed up slightly so that she could look up at his face. "Was Seamus the only time that happened? That you wasted away because you left Ireland?"

He shook his head. "No, though it was the last time anything like that happened. Once before, the couple we'd incarnated into fled Ireland for this continent because of famine." He looked very sad. "There were so many famines in the 18th and 19th centuries. So many Irish starved to death, Bella." He paused. "Like Seamus, Colm started to become ill on the long voyage from Ireland to the States, and then he wasted away."

She squeezed her arms around him, glad she couldn't remember him as Colm, remember that life, too, withering to nothing. "And in this form? How are you being away from home?"

His hands ran soothingly up and down her back.

"In this form, I'm tied just as fiercely to home. I'll be very weak if we're away for too long. But Bella, the short time we're here for Thanksgiving won't affect me. It's ok. I can feel the worry radiating off of you."

Her eyes squinched up in thought. "So if you can only leave Ireland for fairly short periods of time, how is it you were hanging out in and around my head for thirty years? Did you go back to Ireland a lot to recharge or something?"

"No, my heart. It's only my physical manifestations that react that way; being reborn as I was as Colm and Seamus, or masquerading in a body like I am now, these physical manifestations are linked to the Ireland in a fundamental way. I'm not entirely sure I can explain it; it just _is_ this way." He pulled her back into the warmth of his chest. "Before we met again this month, and when we're in between incarnations, we exist in the Otherworld, the land of the Tuatha, what modern men call the land of faerie. We don't exist in quite the same way there; it translates to insubstantial forms in this world."

He seemed to be struggling to articulate his explanation. "I think that by confining my spirit into a physical manifestation, I'm almost cutting it off, or creating a thick buffer, between my spirit and the Otherworld, which means I'm considerably weaker than I am in my natural state. In that case, being physically closer to the doors to the Otherworld means my physical body stays healthy; moving away from that connection means my physical body grows weak; my weakened spirit can't sustain it. That is my theory, anyway."

"Oh," Bella murmured. "So no lengthy trips to travel the world, then? We'll always need to go back home after a certain time so that you can stay strong?"

She watched the waning light of the sun glint off of his hair as he nodded. "Yes. So no month-long backpacking trips across the Himalayas, I'm afraid."

Bella made a frustrated face up at him. "No month-long backpacking trips? Whatever shall I do?" She allowed her voice to take on a false note of hysteria while trying to suppress a giggle.

He leaned down and feathered a kiss on her cheek. The hair on the nape of her neck rose with his whispered response.

"Well, _a ghrá_, I think it best if you do _me._ Don't you?"

Bella felt a delightful shiver run through her body and she leaned back enough to nip at his chin above her.

"What do you think our chances are of making it upstairs to my room without grief from my brother?"

She let out a shuddering breath as his grin spread across his beautiful face.

"I'd say the chances are good." He pressed his lips against her forehead and guided her back toward the house. She delighted in the feel of his hand on the small of her back and the way the warmth from his hand seemed to seep through her coat and radiate through her, in spite of the chilly November air.

The sun had set, and their path was only just visible in the light of the full moon. Bella glanced up at Edward beside her and stopped.

Stopped moving.

Stopped breathing.

Stopped thinking.

There was breathtaking, and there was _breathtaking_. Edward was the latter. He was hers. Her brain stuttered as it processed this. Hers.

Edward noticed her lack of motion after a step or two and turned into her. He chuckled and cupped her face with his hands.

"In" he commanded. "Breathe in."

She obeyed, surprised to realize she'd stopped at all.

"Out."

She exhaled with a smile and turned her head to kiss his palm. "Mine." She breathed.

"Yes," he agreed. "Yours. Always yours. In our past lives, in this life, in our future lives. Yours. Just as you are mine."

Bella leaned into his hands like a cat, rubbed her cheek against his hand and wishing she could purr in contentment.

"Do you feel tired?"

She raised an eyebrow and paused. "No. It's not late enough, really. Why?"

"Do you think you can fake being tired and needing a nap?"

"Um...maybe?" She answered and questioned.

He nodded in approval. "Good. This is how we'll get past Emmett. You're going to be just exhausted. I'm going to carry you upstairs so you can take a nap. And we'll stay up there. And we'll see how quiet you can be." He smirked at her and licked his lips.

Lips that she wanted on her.

"Suddenly, I feel absolutely exhausted. So very tired." She placed the back of her hand against her forehead and let her knees sag for dramatic effect.

"The most beautiful actress to ever see the stage."

She held out her hand to him. "To the house?"

"To the house."

By this time, they'd cleared the woods surrounding the Swan home and had entered the halo of light that surrounded the house, courtesy of a battery of flood lights Charlie had installed during a rare rash of break ins years ago.

As they came close to the back door, Bella let her pace slow down and her feet drag a bit. Her posture slumped and she wrapped her arm around Edward.

At the door, he lowered his head to kiss the top of hers. "Tired, my heart?"

"Exhausted." She hoped that she wasn't over-doing the tone in her voice; she knew Emmett would be staring out the window and observing her with Edward. They would have to work on that. She was getting beyond annoyed at the men. She and Edward wouldn't be here much longer, and she refused to leave with the same tensions between the three of them. She wasn't naïve enough to think everything would be resolved lickety split, but there needed to be something resolved there.

Edward reached forward and opened the door, and before she could step forward into the warmth of the house, he scooped her up, bridal-style, and carried her across the threshold.

"Edward," she cautioned.

"Yes?" All innocence.

She rolled her eyes. "I'm tired, not crippled. I can walk."

He beamed down at her. "Why make you exert all that extra energy? I can carry you upstairs."

"Seriously?" She huffed and scowled at him. "Let me walk."

He responded by squeezing her closer to his body and grinning. He really was ridiculous, she thought. Carrying her all through the bottom floor of the house to the stairs, and then carry her up the stairs, too?

He strode past an irritated-looking Emmett, through the dining room and living room to the staircase.

Yes. Clearly he did mean to do just that. She sagged against him in defeat and cracked her jaw on a very big, very real yawn. "Maybe I'll really go to sleep," she whispered to him.

He didn't even break stride. "I doubt that," he said confidently.

Bella wrapped her arms loosely around his neck. She wanted to tug his head down so she could kiss him silly, but since he was navigating the stairs with her in his arms, she thought she should keep that to herself for a moment. As it was, she nuzzled up against him, enjoying the feel of him moving, and inhaling his mouthwatering smell.

When they arrived in her room, he lowered her down to the bed, pressed his lips to her forehead, and headed back out the door.

Wait, what?

"Where do you think you're going?" She demanded, sitting up. "I thought this was going to be Edward and Bella time!" She narrowed her eyes at him, attempting to glare at him, in spite of the stunning smile spreading across his face.

Smug bastard. Smug handsome bastard. Smug handsome bastard who had better get back in her room _right now_.

Apparently he couldn't take the hint from her glare, however, because he was already in the hallway.

"Hot chocolate," he said with that infuriating and delicious smug smile still on his face. "You want hot chocolate before you take your nap, and you sent me down to the kitchen for it." He had the audacity (of course) to wink at her before he turned and disappeared. She could hear him bounding down the stairs, probably taking them two at a time, and she heard the muffled voices of him and her brother before her sense of hearing failed her and she was in quiet again.

She divested herself of her heavy outer clothes and flopped back down onto the bed to wait for Edward and the hot chocolate. Not willing to wait for him to get the evening started, she lazily shifted her weight on the bed, rubbing her legs together, creating a lovely friction and whetting her body's appetite for Edward. Just thinking about having his body against hers made her blood pulse and the moisture soak her panties. She began to lightly rub herself, enjoying the extra friction she got out of pressing the seam of her jeans against her clit. Her breathing was faster and she could feel her skin beginning to flush.

This is how Edward found her when he came back up to the room.

She heard him pause in the doorway and suck in a breath. She didn't stop her hand's movements, just craned her head to look at him in all his beauty, the back lighting provided by the hallway casting his features and giving his hair an almost angelic glow.

"Bella," he breathed out.

"Edward," she purred in return, trying to sound as sultry as she could.

His jaw dropped slightly and before she knew it, the door was shut behind him, the mug of hot chocolate unceremoniously dropped to her desk, and her love was on top of her, his mouth on hers, his hands already peeling her shirt off.

Bella kept her legs locked around his waist and rocked and pushed at him, indicating that she wanted to roll over. He obliged, and then she was on top, her body still locked on his, with him filling her up as only he could. She paused for a moment, settling her weight on her hips and legs, pressing further into him, grinding and creating a delicious friction.

Edward spread out under and before her, all muscle and sinew and _sex_ was a favorite view of hers. His hair fanned out from his head, his chest rose and fell with his heavy breaths, his muscles rippled across his torso as they moved together. He was art in motion. He was hers.

She lowered her body to his, needing to feel the sweat and heat from his body seep into hers. One hand, placed on the mattress next to his ribs, she used for balance. The other she used to reach up and grab on to the back of his neck. She was getting close, and could see in his eyes that he was there with him. Gods, how she loved this creature bound to her. It was as if her soul was reaching out between them, joining their energies together as their bodies came together over and over. Bella felt his grip on her hips tighten to an almost painful level as he began to thrust up into her harder and faster.

They were tangled limbs and heavy breathing. They were slick skin and grunts and giggles and moans and frantic kisses. They were whole.

How had she survived all these years without him?

* * *

"Out the door." Bella was pointing her finger in the direction of the front door.

The three men in front of her wore incredulous expressions; Edward was sure his was the worst of the three. He knew that Jasper and Emmett were accustomed to 'Stern Bella' putting her foot down when she thought the boys—men, now—in her life were being ridiculous or need prodding in the right direction. This was the first time, however, that he'd been on the receiving end, and he waffled between being turned on and being amused at the small woman ordering around three men who could easily manhandle her. He rather liked the idea of Bella bossing him around from time to time...and in specific circumstances. He'd have to save that thought for later.

"Out the door?" He parroted back to her in doubt.

Emmett sniggered behind him, and he was sure he heard Jasper choking on his own laugh.

He wanted to hit himself on the forehead. He knew full well what happened when someone questioned 'Stern Bella'. He'd seen her in action for decades. Seeing her pull this on other people, however, was entirely different from facing it himself. And he was reacting all wrong.

He just couldn't bring himself to be intimidated by the slip of a woman in front of him, stern expression or no. This was the same woman who tucked perfectly under his arm, who he had to duck to kiss, who he could pick up and swing around with nary a strained muscle. He had tricked The Dagda out of _Brú na Bóinne, _slain Elcmar, fought against the Milesians, and she thought he was going to just walk out the door with Jasper and Emmett for "bonding time" purely because she said so?

Yes, clearly she did.

Her eyes narrowed and he fought the urge to scoop her up and kiss her silly. She was _adorable_. Her dark brown eyes were almost slits, her gorgeous lips pursed into a thin line. To complete the picture, one hand was on her hip—right over the mark he'd left with his mouth this morning, he noticed—and her foot was tapping impatiently.

He realized something. Giving in, making himself miserable by keeping company with a man he really didn't want to know and with a man who really didn't want to know him, would please her. It would make her think that he was putting forth effort, and maybe, just maybe, make for a good night later on. His decision was made.

_This is how women pull the strings and run the world_, he reflected. _We want to please them_.

He strode forward and leaned down to kiss her softly on her cheek and whispered against her skin. "Because you request it, my heart."

He watched appreciatively as she arched her eyebrow. She really was exquisite.

"Your coat is in the closet," she said flatly.

He heard a quiver in her voice, though, and knew he'd gotten to her. He grinned cheekily at her and pretended to tip a hat in her direction. "Yes, ma'am." Then he turned to the two men who would make him miserable for the next few hours. "Gentlemen?"

The other two already had on their coats—apparently they knew how this little confrontation would go down—so he quickly grabbed his coat and threw it on. He followed Jasper and Emmett out to Jasper's car, and climbed into the back seat.

"A 'rusty nail'? Jesus, Em, that sounds like a pansy mixed drink." Jasper was looking at his cousin-in-law in disbelief.

"How, Jasper, does 'rusty nail' sound pansy? It's a fucking _rusty nail_ for god's sake. Sharp. Metallic. Rusty. And I'll have you know that scotch and Drambuie are very manly."

Edward knew it wouldn't get him the good graces of Bella's brother, but he had to poke. "Why dilute the scotch?"

Emmett shot him a look, and it took all of Edward's self control to suppress a grin. The big man looked completely taken aback. "It's not diluting the scotch. It's combining scotch with _Drambuie_, and it tastes good." He pointed his chin at the rocks glass sitting in front of Edward. "What do you have in there?" The big man slid his eyes over to Jasper, who was enjoying a martini. "No matter what is in it, at least it's in a manly-looking drink. Fucking _Jasper_ has to have drinks served in glasses with stems and food in them."

Edward chuckled at Emmett's insult, and answered. "Jameson 12 Year Old Special Reserve." He allowed a sad expression to cross his face. "It was either this or Jameson's regular bottling. They don't have the really good stuff here."

Jasper broke in. "Girly drink, Em? This is the drink of choice of James Bond, bitch. Don't question it."

Emmett considered this for a moment. "James Bond? Well ok, since Sean Connery was the original, and he made those stupid drinks look cool fifty years ago, I'll give you the martini. You can't argue that the glass isn't girly, though. Edward and I, we are clearly and obviously drinking men's drinks. You...you look a little light in your loafers with that thing."

Jasper rolled his eyes. "Give me a fucking break. A martini is a classic. It's not like I'm imbibing some bullshit drink a college kid made up last year at a frat party. This has style. History. Substance."

Edward, mindful of his love's insistence that actually be friendly toward one of the other men her age in the family, decides to make small talk with Emmett. "Are you familiar with Irish Whiskey, Emmett? If you like scotch, you'll appreciate Jameson, too, I think."

"Yeah man, I've had Bushmills. It was alright." Emmett shrugged. "I like Glenlivet better though."

"That's because you were drinking Bushmills." He got up and headed over to the bar to buy Emmett a Jameson. There was no way he was going to have his future brother-in-law asking for a Bushmills when he came to visit.

He got back to the table with two glasses in his hand. "This," he said as he set the first one in front of Emmett, "is Jameson's regular bottling. And this," he set down the second glass, "is what I'm drinking, the 12 Year Old Special Reserve. Take your time and enjoy."

Emmett cocked an eyebrow at Edward. "Trying to tell me what to drink?"

"I'm trying to educate your palate. Glenlivet and Glenfiddich are good. I'm actually impressed. Irish whiskey, though, is, in my not at all humble opinion, superior. Give it a try." He leaned back in his chair to enjoy his own glass.

* * *

"Doucheward." Emmett looked triumphant.

"Doucheward? Don't be ridiculous. Failward was lame enough."

"It's not lame. It's creative! You're with my little sister. You are by definition a douche. So, Doucheward."

"So Failward?" Edward had a tough time following Emmett's logic on a normal day, but when they were both drinking, it was impossible.

"Failward because you're the first guy Bella has dated for more than two weeks. She has a horrible track record. You'll be gone soon enough." Emmett waved his hand dismissively.

Jasper rolled his eyes at Emmett. "You realize that makes no sense, right Em?"

"Whatever, man. He's still failing with my sister. He's a douche."

"Has she ever brought anyone else home to the family?" Edward knew very well that his heart had never before brought a lover home to meet her parents and brother. Even Alice never met most of them. "Don't you think that means I'm more than a fling?"

Emmett snorted. "My sister? Listen, Jerkward, you don't deserve someone that special. Don't get comfortable. She'll see through you, see that you're only after her money." He glared at Edward. "I find it suspicious that you just _happen_ to have the same name as the hero in her first book. Do that on purpose, did you? Is Edward even your real name?"

Edward fought back a laugh. He wished he could tell this man that the Edward in the book had been named after _him_ and not the other way around. "Actually," he returned in what he hoped was a cocky tone—he really had consumed far too much already. There were two empty bottles of Jameson and a half-full bottle of Glenfiddich on the table; they'd given up on asking the bartender for drinks by the glass and had just bought the bottles outright. The man tending the bar, Seth, had already confiscated Jasper's keys and had promised them a taxi home whenever they were ready to leave, or when the bar closed, whichever came first.

"Actually, my given name is Aengus. It was legally changed to Edward many years ago, however." A little white lie there, with the 'legally changed' business, but whatever. He couldn't be bothered with that right now.

"Many years ago? When was this?" Emmett was leaning forward in his seat glaring at Edward over the table. Out of the corner of his eye, Edward saw Jasper's head swing between the two men as though he were watching a tennis match.

Edward had to think back - when was it that Bella has seen that ridiculous movie, and named him Edward after the main character? "About twenty-five years ago, I think." He paused. "And you're right; Bella is out of my league. But she's chosen me. And I plan on being around for the rest of her life." He tipped his head back slightly as he emptied his glass of its contents.

Emmett scowled at him. "Look Wankward, don't hurt her." He reached across the table and grabbed Edward's hand.

Edward briefly thought about making a crack about how he didn't find Emmett attractive in that way when he felt the huge hand begin to crush his own.

"She may be thirty now, but she's still my baby sister. If you hurt her, it won't matter if the two of you live here or in Ireland; I'll crush you. Are we clear?"

The big man kept squeezing, and Edward's hand, less fragile than a human's or not, was starting to _hurt_. But he refused to show it. "Emmett, if I hurt Bella, I'll deliver myself to you on a platter."

Emmett nodded sharply and released Edward's hand. He looked over at Jasper, who was looking at the two of them in amusement. "You ready to go, Jazz?"

The blonde man nodded. "I'm ready if you're done playing overprotective brother bear."

Emmett narrowed his eyes at Jasper. "I haven't forgotten about high school and Bella, Jazz. Do I need to beat your ass again, for old times sake?"

Jasper rolled his eyes. "Oh for fuck's sake, Emmett. That was high school." He looked doubtfully over at Edward. "And probably not appropriate to bring up at any rate.

Looking between the two of them, Edward asked, "So Emmett kicked your ass for something that happened with Bella in high school?" He could feel warm affection for Emmett bubbling up. He'd liked the five-year-old Emmett when he'd vowed to Charlie over a newborn Bella that he'd protect his little sister. He'd been delighted when Emmett had decked one of Bella's classmates for claiming he'd bedded her when she was a sophomore in high school. Did he have to thank Emmett for punishing Jasper for his experimenting with Bella?

"Jazz had to go to the hospital, actually." Emmett looked a little embarrassed. "I didn't realize how hard I was hitting him; back then my temper and my size were an almost lethal combination. If he had been anyone besides my friend - Yorkie or Newton, for example - I might've killed him."

Edward quirked an eyebrow. He was fairly sure it was for Jasper's involvement with Bella, but Bella was positive her brother knew nothing of her arrangement with Jasper, and he didn't want to spill the beans if she was right, and Emmett had found another reason to put his friend in the hospital.

"Can I ask?"

Jasper shifted uncomfortably.

"Sure," Emmett shrugged. "I caught Bella and Jasper going at it in the back of his car after a football game her senior year. I didn't want her pissed at me, so I waited until he brought her home and I talked him into going out with me. I beat his ass for sneaking around with my sister."

By this time all three of them had stopped drinking though Edward was still fuzzy. He tried to think back to a time when Jasper had been in the hospital and Bella has still been in high school. He thought he remembered that football game. That year had been so hard on him that he'd spent less time inside Bella's head than he ever had before, and so he supposed that Emmett must have spotted her tryst with Jasper one of those times when he was trying to distract himself while she broke his heart by making out with Jasper.

He played innocent. "You only kicked his ass that once?"

Emmett nodded. "Once was all it took. He didn't go back after that." He looked so sure of himself, so confident.

Edward wanted to laugh. Emmett truly didn't know. Bella and Jasper had been learning together for quite some time by that point, and had stopped shortly after only when Jasper realized how much he wanted to be with Alice. Edward was fairly certain Emmett had no idea of the real reason Bella and Jasper stopped their arrangement.

They divvied up the tab in even thirds, left a nearly fifty percent tip for Seth and the waitress they hadn't really needed, and gathered up their coats. Edward was feeling generous in his drunken haze, so as Emmett walked out first to get into their taxi, he pulled Jasper aside. "I know about your history with Bella," he started. He was delighted when the blood drained out of Jasper's face. Did he think Edward was going to tattle to Emmett? Was he afraid of Edward? "Bella and I have shared a lot, and so I've heard all about high school and college from her. You were a better choice than her classmates, I suppose, but you were never good enough for her." He paused and assessed Jasper, who looked beyond startled. "I'm gratified that Emmett put you in the hospital, and that you apparently kept that from Bella. I have a little more respect for you."

Jasper's mouth was working, but no sound was coming out. Edward had obviously taken him off guard.

"So where does that leave us?"

Edward's forehead furrowed as he thought about the question. "Bella considers you family. I like Alice, quite a bit—she's been an amazing friend to Bella over the years. Your and Alice's children are precious. She wants us to be friends. I don't think I can be." He shrugged. "Call me territorial. But I'm also honest. I won't be your best friend, but I won't insult you." _Where you can hear_,he thought to himself, "I will be polite and civil and respectful because that is what Bella needs me to do."

Jasper's lips twitched, and Edward wondered what so funny. When Jasper held out his hand for Edward to shake, he wasn't sure what to think. He took it hesitantly, quirking his eyebrow in question.

"Acquaintances?"

Edward nodded in agreement. "Acquaintances."

Having nothing else to say, he spun on his heel and followed Emmett out to the taxi, which the big man had already climbed into. A few moments later, Jasper slid into the front seat with the driver, and Seth handed over the keys to Jasper's car, telling them to come back over whenever they wanted the next day to retrieve the car from the parking lot.

Edward felt a little dirty. He wanted nothing more than to see Emmett deck Jasper, or to do it himself; hitting the man would make him feel better. Shaking hands and more or less calling a truce felt wrong. He'd do what Bella asked and play nice because she was his heart, the reason he existed. He could not, however, let it go, no matter what her modern sense of justice and fairness said. This was the one thing he couldn't do for her.

Move mountains? Yes. Turn his back on family? Yes. Kill? Already had. Put himself through excruciating pain? Of course; already done. Forgive the interlopers who'd shared her bed?

No. They represented too much. Hurt too much.

Not being able to grant her this request destroyed a tiny part of him. It was a small loss, however, when compared to the larger part of him that had shriveled up and died when Jasper and others had shared her bed over the course of fifteen years.

All he could give her, in this request of hers, was the appearance of a truce, and so he'd gone through the act of shaking the blond man's hand. He would sully himself and give her the appearance she needed. It was the least of all the things he was capable of doing for her.

He wasn't entirely sure where he stood with Emmett. Introducing him to good alcohol and letting Bella's brother call him names seemed to have softened Emmett up, but Edward couldn't be sure how much of that was alcohol and how much of that was genuine change. He supposed he'd just have to see where things stood in the morning. _Until then_, he thought. As they got closer to the house, he pondered a myriad of...stimulating ways to wake his Bella when he got back to the room. He was feeling the need, yet again, to feel just how very much _his_ she was.


	5. Chapter 5

Edward carefully made his way down the stairs, mindful in his haze that his balance would be off and so taking extra care to navigate the narrow staircase that lead to what Renee had dubbed the "man cave" where Charlie, Carlisle, and the other men usually congregated to watch sports games. The girls had planned a "girls night" with Esme and Renee while Bella sent Edward, Jasper, and Emmett out to bond. He thought he'd sneak down and steal his heart away from the other women first thing.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, he paused to orient himself; his head was spinning slightly and he needed to rest for a few moments before continuing on. He leaned his weight on the door frame at the bottom of the stairs, a few feet from the man cave. Voices drifted out to him, and hearing his name caught his attention. He brought his head up quickly and grimaced against the spinning dizziness that accompanied the quick movement.

"-really changed her. When they were children she never made friends with their schoolmates. It was always just Alice. When Alice had sleepovers at the house, even though Bella was there physically, she wasn't...there. There was always a disconnect." The voices didn't belong to who he'd expected. He'd thought the girls would be down here, not Renee and Esme. It was the latter's voice he'd heard. Too lightheaded to navigate his way up the stairs at the moment, and having no compunction about eavesdropping, he stayed where he was.

"Do you see the way he looks at her?" Renee's voice was wistful. "I keep expecting him to eat her alive. Or hurl his body in front of a speeding bullet for her. It's almost scary, the devotion there."

"There's a story there," Esme's voice was full of agreement, and curiosity. "It is almost, I don't know. Hero worship, it seems like. If she shifts her weight, Edward adjusts to accommodate her. And it isn't a conscious adjustment; he just does it by reflex, it seems. He orbits around her."

"They orbit each other," Renee corrected. "Edward isn't the only one who adjusts to the slightest movement. At first I was appalled at how Bella seemed to go out of her way to accommodate him; I taught her better than to just offer herself up to anyone, to stay strong in herself. And then I realized that if Bella goes out of her way to reflect and conform to Edward, Edward moves and accommodates and changes just as readily for her. I'm not sure who is the moon, and who is the planet."

He hadn't realized how observant the two women could be, or perhaps how obviously infatuated with one another he and Bella were. He knew he orbited Bella just as Esme said, but in his obsessive thoughts of his mate, he'd failed to notice that she orbited him in return.

"I'm not sure I'm ready to let go of my little girl, Esme. She's always needed us, needed us in a way Emmett never did." He heard a heavy sigh. "Now that she has not only her career, but Love, a capital-"L"-Love in her life, she won't need me anymore."

Esme made shushing noises. "She'll always need her mother, Nene. She has an additional rock in her life to shelter her in a storm, but that doesn't take away from you or Charlie, or the rest of the family; we are still here for her, she will still need you, and us, even with Edward in her life. He can't replace her mother, nor do I think he wants to."

Replace her mother in this life? Of course not. He didn't...well, he did. If Bella had no one in this life, he would take on all those roles for her, be everything. But he didn't need to. Renee and Esme were her mothers, Charlie and Carlisle her fathers, Alice and Emmett her siblings. He could just be her lover. Her mate. Her husband. Her confidante. Her everything else.

They fell silent for a few moments. "Another bottle?" Esme's voice broke the quiet.

"Yes."

He heard the sounds of cork being wrenched out of a bottle, of liquid being poured into glasses. There was a clinking sound, and he imagined that the two glasses had been tapped against one another.

"To my daughter's new found and continued happiness."

"To Bella's happiness."

A smile slowly unfurled itself across his face. Yes, to his Bella. He mentally clinked an imaginary glass with the two newest women in his life, women he adored for their love and dedication to his heart. "To mothers," he murmured, nearly soundlessly. He turned and with great care quietly made his way back upstairs to the main floor. He took a side trip to the kitchen for a much needed glass of water, and then headed up to Bella's room.

By the time he made it to the top floor, he'd started to sober up. His head was still fuzzy, but he no longer felt like he was trying to walk on a ship being tossed about the ocean. He entered Bella's room and paused in the door.

There she was.

Sound asleep, she was curled up in the bed, devastatingly beautiful in plaid flannel pants that were creeping down her hips and a t-shirt she'd bought him not two weeks before. Already, she was stealing his clothes. And he loved it. The t-shirt looked much, much better on her than it ever had on him. Moonlight trickled in through the blinds on the window and cast bands of shadow and light across her.

His. No one else's.

He crawled into the bed, pressing his lips to her sock-covered foot. He pushed the hem of the pants leg up and began kissing up her calf. He smiled against her skin. She hadn't shaved this morning and there was the tiniest hint of stubble on her legs now. It was her stubble, and he loved it. So beautiful. When he reached her knee, he stopped and brought her pants leg back down. He repeated the process on her other leg, and then kissed his way all the way up her leg, pressing his lips to flannel up the outside of her thigh, to her hip, where he gently bit down.

Bella shifted in her sleep, giving him easier access to her stomach. He gently pushed the hem of the t-shirt up until there was a sliver of smooth stomach visible. He pressed his lips to that bit of skin, starting on her right side, and kissing his way across to her left hip and pausing only to pay special attention to the birthmark at the left of her navel. She smelled divine-her natural scent combined with that of whatever soap she used, the blankets, her clothes, and his shirt to make her mouthwatering. He kissed back along the same trail of her stomach and this time he heard her breathing change as she began to wake.

Her weight shifted again, her legs falling open slightly. "Edward?"

Her sleep-laden voice thrilled him.

"Yes, _grá mo chroí_. I'm home."

Her fingers were in his hair, pulling him up so that they were eye level. She smiled sleepily at him. "You _are_ home," she slurred a little, not quite awake yet. "Where you are is home."

He smiled and put his all his weight into one arm, propping himself up over her, and bringing his free hand to palm her stomach and caress the skin there. Hers was a perfect stomach. Flat while she was in college, it had softened slightly, now giving just the right amount under the gentle pressure of his hand. He lowered himself enough run his nose along her jaw and breathe in her warmth. He felt the muscles on her face flex as she smiled at him.

She tilted her head back to invite access to her neck. The most beautiful neck in existence. With her head tilted back like this and the moonlight giving just enough illumination, he could see the delicious interplay of muscles, sinew, and blood vessels under her delicate skin. He nuzzled along the line of her artery, tracing it down to her collarbone.

He could feel her breathing picking up speed as he nipped lightly at her collarbone. She stretched languidly under him, her arms extended full out above her head, her back arching and pushing her chest into him a bit as she tensed and relaxed into the stretch.

Edward used the opening provided by her stretch to push her shirt up, and she accommodated him and wiggled her way out of it, leaving her torso bare to him. He let the air whoosh out of his lungs. No matter how many times he saw her, his heart, like this, she took his breath away. She was on her back, her arms crossed lazily above her head on the pillows, with her smooth skin begging for his attention.

He moved so that he was once again even with the birthmark near her belly button, and he began to tenderly kiss her stomach, making random patterns of kisses, nips, and licks across the soft skin there, trailing over and across her ribs, covering her entire lower torso with love. She squirmed beneath him, much to his pleasure, so he pinned her to the bed, holding her still while he continued to worship her body as she deserved.

Finally, after kissing every inch of skin around them, he turned her attention to her breasts. Her body was flush with desire now, her eyes bright with lust and love, hair spread out across the pillows, her hands clutching at him wherever she could reach. She'd been trying to direct his mouth to her chest for the past few minutes, but he'd stubbornly kept his ministrations to her neck, collarbone, shoulders, arms, and stomach, hoping to key her up to such a point that any attention to her breasts would blow her away.

He wasn't disappointed. Keeping eye contact with her the whole time, he lowered his lips to one taut nipple and, ever so gently, scrapped his teeth across the tip. The pleased gasp and the shudder that ripped through her made him grin. He took her nipple into his mouth and sucked gently, alternately pinching it with his lips and tweaking it with his tongue. While his mouth was attached to her right breast, he massaged her left breast, rubbing the nipple with the pad of his thumb, pinching and pulling at it as she gasped and writhed beneath him.

"Edward." His name fell from her lips and he heard the love of ages in her voice.

He rested his weight on his elbows, and covered the soft flesh of her breasts with his hands and he pulled up to cover her lips with his own. So delicious, so perfect, he thought. They caressed each other's mouths with their tongues, eliciting moans on both sides.

* * *

Later in the morning, when the sun was filtering in, he awoke to the best alarm he could think of: Bella's mouth wrapped around him, her small body cradled between his legs, her long hair tickling his thighs as she moved her mouth up and down along the shaft of his penis.

He pulled another pillow under his head so he could better watch her. There were many, many things he enjoyed, beautiful sights he'd taken in over then length of his immortal life. There was a time, before Cáer was a part of his life, when he thought there was no more beautiful sight than that of the soft spring sunlight kissing the River Boyne. Since the coming of Cáer, however, the most beautiful sights in his long life were those of Cáer in her many forms.

And right now, this sight before him was the most beautiful of the beautiful.

He orgasmed in her mouth with a grunt as his eyes rolled back in his head and his whole body lit up with the power of it. His Bella kissed her way up his stomach and chest as he came down from the high she'd brought on.

"Good morning," she whispered in his ear.

"Yes," he answered back. "A very good morning, _a ghrá_. You can wake me up that way anytime you like." He was practically purring as he spoke; he was sure the expression on his face matched her own self-satisfied look.

He brought one hand up to cup the back of her head and tangle his fingers in her hair, and wrapped the other around her hip, to push her down onto his rapidly hardening erection. He pulled her lips to his and their lips locked, he sucking on her bottom lip, she worrying his top lip. His heart, his love, began rocking her hips against him, eliciting a moan from him that was lost in her mouth.

He lifted her hips up and she followed his lead, bringing herself up and then lowering herself down onto his now rock-hard erection. He tightened his grip on her hips, keeping her still for a moment while he let himself revel in the feel of her warmth encasing him. He loosened his grip on her, and she started moving up and down on him, causing those glorious breasts of her to bounce.

He was completely entranced.

Edward let his eyes trail up to her face and noticed that she was watching his body in the much the same way he'd been watching hers, with lust and love and passion and pleasure. Seeing that look in her eyes and on her face nearly sent him over the edge. He wanted Bella to come with him, though, so he held back and concentrated on bringing her as much pleasure as he could.

* * *

The night before they were to leave Forks for Seattle and then Ireland, Alice and Esme insisted that everyone come over for dinner at Carlisle and Esme's house. Accordingly, Edward, Bella, Charlie (with whom he'd had a very entertaining "don't you hurt my daughter or I'll shoot you" conversation the previous evening) and Renee (who'd cornered him, literally, that morning and extracted an unnecessary promise from him to worship the ground her daughter walked on for the rest of their natural lives) drove up to the large Victorian home on the outskirts of Forks, pulling into the long driveway just behind Emmett and Rose.

Edward had mixed feelings about leaving. He was definitely glad to be going back home; he could feel the pull of his ancient homestead more strongly now than he had at any time of their visit. He thought that perhaps that meant the time away from home he could survive was coming to a close. He was sad to be leaving Bella's family, though. She was so different around them than she was around anyone else in the world aside from him. When she was with her family, she had almost no trace of her normal reservation or stand-offishness. The antics of Alice and Jasper's children, Austin and Chloe, brought his Bella out of her head more than anyone else, and he was happy to spend hours watching her play with the two little ones. Who was going to draw her out when they were back home, aside from himself?

The goodbye dinner was uneventful, reminding him mostly of a cozy warm security blanket. This blanket of love, he hoped, would serve his Bella well when they were back home.

* * *

Bella leaned against the window frame, looking out into the back yard and the trees that crowded in a stone's throw away from the house. The morning sun wasn't yet fully up in the sky, so the shadows in the trees were still deep. She imagined that she could see the shadows moving, the animals going about their chilly morning routines as the day began. She took a sip of her breakfast tea and wished she could purr with the wonderful feeling the hot liquid brought to her.

She took a mental inventory of everything she needed to do today. Foremost was writing. Then there was the inevitable laundry, and the continuing effort on her part to teach Edward how to do it. He'd jokingly (she assumed) mentioned that laundry was women's work, so he didn't need to know how to use modern washers and dryers, but when her eyebrows had climbed nearly to her hairline with doubt and consternation, he'd quickly back tracked, telling her he'd love to learn how laundry was done in the twenty-first century. So far he'd managed to cover the small nook holding the washer and dryer, and the hall in which it sat, with soap and bubbles, and had turned an entire load of white towels pink. It was a work in progress. But the bliss on his face as they played in the bubbles had been worth the clean up later. Because, of course, everything was worth his happiness.

Farther down on her list was to go through the few boxes in the attic that the previous residents had left up there. She'd been so focused on unpacking her own belongings and getting settled in that she hadn't indulged in the curiosity of what was in them. Today, though, would be the day. She felt a little like Pandora, though she recognized that the parallel was a weak one.

Christmas looked to be uneventful, much to Bella's relief. The preceding weeks had been crazy, and all she wanted was some down time with Edward before the new year started and she really needed to buckle down and write the novel she'd come to Ireland to research. She already had the first hundred or so pages drafted, but with the move to beautiful Eire, buying the house, getting to know her new environment, and greedily spending every moment with Edward, she hadn't gotten any farther on her writing. And as Rose had cheerily reminded her during yesterday's phone call, she needed to get her ass in gear.

She'd been looking to splurge when she bought her home here. She wanted land, she wanted enough house to accommodate her family when they came to visit, she wanted someplace that felt right in her bones. And splurge, she had. She winced a little when she thought about how much she'd paid for this little piece of heaven, but the isolation from neighbors, sizable yard, perfectly maintained white-stone lined gravel drive, and the trees made the price worth it. And if she was honest, it was the trees that had sealed the deal for her. Edward's approval of the location, only thirty or so kilometers from Newgrange, was all she needed to sign the papers and make this space theirs.

She was incredibly grateful to be able to afford such extravagance. Thanks to the Powers That Be for two best-sellers and the paychecks that came with them.

It really was home. The furniture was still sparse, and the decorations haphazard for the moment, but it was hers and Edwards, and already in the short month they'd lived there, they'd filled it with love.

Bella had been insistent on "Christening" each room of the house with Edward as soon as they moved in. They'd taken great pleasure in making love in each of the four bedrooms, the kitchen, the dining room, her study, each bathroom, and the sun room. Edward had offered to take her on the manicured lawn that surrounded the white house near Dunshaughlin, but Bella hadn't gotten up the courage to take him up on the offer yet. It was too cold to contemplate exposing as much skin as she'd want to expose in such a scenario. So, the yard was a location filed away in the back of her brain for warmer weather.

She heard Edward pad across the hardwood floors of her study, and she sighed happily into him when he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, ducking slightly to rest his chin on her head.

"Good morning, my Edward."

His arms tightened slightly around her. "Good morning, my heart. You're up early."

"I have things to do, characters to sacrifice to the whims of The Fates, boxes to investigate, and laundry lessons to teach." She chuckled when she felt him stiffen behind her. "All of this requires an early start to the day." She made her voice sound as chipper and happy as she possibly could, knowing it would tweak him a tiny bit to hear her be so happy about laundry.

"So where do we start?" He asked as he pressed his cheek to her temple.

"I start with writing. I was thinking around lunch we could go into the attic and check out the boxes?"

She felt him nod against her head. "I think I'll spend the morning exploring the woods around here. The Solstice is in two days and I'd like to find the portals to Home. I'd meant to do so before now, but someone," he squeezed her gently, "has been quite distracting."

He kissed her sloppily and loudly on her neck. "I'll be back for lunch and our attic adventure, little Pandora."

She giggled. Sometimes she thought he could still read her thoughts. "Ok, handsome one. I'll see you in a few hours."

She felt the loss of his body heat as he pulled away, and stayed there against her window until several minutes later she saw him striding across the yard toward the trees.

Without Edward there to distract her, it was relatively easy to bury herself in the world of her novel, in which she was weaving into modern times the story of Aengus Mac Og, Irish god of love and youth, son of Dagda Mór and Boann, foster child of Midir, and of the woman who haunted his dreams and captured his heart, Cáer Ibormeith. Though she hadn't known that this story was _her_ story when she began it, she still wanted to transfer the ancient legend into the modern world for her novel.

She was lost in the world she'd created for her story and it was with great surprise sometime later that she smelled the unmistakable, mouthwatering odor of chicken soup coming from the kitchen. She made a huge batch of it last week, and both she and Edward thoroughly enjoyed working their way through the large container of soup in the fridge.

She stretched in her chair and made her way over to the kitchen. "Lunch time already? I had no idea so much time had passed."

He smiled at her, running his hand through the sloppy almost-bronze hair as it fell into his eyes. "The sun is at it's zenith in the sky, my heart. Time for my favorite novelist to eat her lunch." There was a twinkle in his eyes that made her giggle.

"You're in a good mood. I take it your tromping around in the woods went well?"

He had a ridiculously pleased expression on his face. "Yes, yes it did. You picked a good spot, here." The expression on his face shifted a little. "How would you feel, _a ghrá_, if my mother stopped in to visit?"

Bella dropped her spoon. "Your mother?" She hated that her voice squeaked. But he'd caught her completely off guard. She'd never considered the fact that she might meet his family. They already knew Cáer. Why would they want to meet her as Bella?

His lips twitched up into a smile. "She wants to visit with us. She says she misses the company of the only being who can keep me in check." He rolled his eyes at this, a strangely juvenile gesture she hadn't seen him do before. Maybe no matter what you were, your mother still brought out the immature child within you.

Bella sucked in a deep breath. "Ok. When does she want to visit? Does she know I don't remember much about being Cáer?"

"Tomorrow, and she'd like to stay through the Solistice. And yes, she knows. It's ok, Bella. She's a mother-in-law, just like any other."

She was pretty sure that the smile he had on his face was supposed to be reassuring, but all she could think was _shit shit shit_. She wasn't ready to meet a goddess. True, she was mated to a god...but it was Edward, someone who'd been with her in some capacity her whole life. His status as a god never really figured into anything for her, unless she wanted to heckle him and compare him to Cupid. His mother, however...Bella was intimidated. It didn't help that she'd never met a boy's mother before, not as the significant other. She'd never kept anyone she'd dated around long enough for that.

Shit.

Preoccupied by this new information, she absent mindedly dipped her spoon to the steaming bowl of soup before her, and was shocked when the hot liquid burned her tongue. In her surprise, she swallowed it down, which just sent the burning sensation all the way down her throat. She made a kind of strangled sound and opened her mouth to the cooling, stinging air, and fanned her now unhappy mouth with her hand.

Edward gaped at her for a couple of seconds before he understood what happened. He jumped up and took the milk out of the fridge and poured her a small glass. "This might help the pain. Drink some."

She nodded and hurridly slurped it down, grateful when it did indeed dull the pain.

"I'm so sorry, my heart." His voice was anguished. "I should've let the soup cool before serving it. I'm so sorry." He ducked down to look at her face and evaluate her state of health.

Still fanning her mouth with her hand, she shook her head at him. "It's just a burned tongue, Edward. Don't stress over it. It's happened before and I daresay it will happen again my lifetime. No permanent damage is done." She tried a reassuring smile on for size, and sighed when it did nothing to soothe the sad, chagrined expression on his face.

She stopped her hand-fanning and reached across the island counter-top to caress his cheek with her fingertips. "I mean it, Edward. Aengus. It's ok. These things happen." She smiled. "And at any rate, I should've been paying attention when trying to eat something hot, like soup. It's not your fault."

He pulled her hand toward her mouth and gently kissed her fingertips. "I'll be more careful next time, my heart. I don't want you to be damaged, most especially because of my negligence." His voice was grave, and Bella fought the impulse to roll her eyes at his overreaction. She was both touched and amused by his reaction. It was just a burned tongue!

"I have to clean," she blurted out.

Edward cocked his head at her. "Clean? The house is spotless."

She nodded. "Clean. Your mother is visiting. Tomorrow. I need to clean. Oh, god. Your mother is coming over tomorrow." She knew her eyes were huge. She fluttered her hands at him. "Wash the dishes? I need to clean. The guest room. There are still boxes packed in there."

_Shit_, she thought again. His mother.

He held her face in between his warm, calloused hands. "There is nothing worry about, my heart. She only wants to see us together. She's put up with my being either unavailable or a complete wreck for three decades. She wants to see me happy. With you."

"Your mother!"

His delicious laugh filled her ears and she relished again this feeling of being home.

"My mother. The river goddess Boann."

Bella pressed her nose against his chest, breathing the scent of him in. "If we can stand like this the whole visit, I won't freak out."

She felt his laugh before she heard it.

"Oh?"

"Yes," she answered. "You smell good. Calming. Like all the things I was missing until November first. So if we can just stand mashed up against each other while she's here, I won't have a panic attack. Because I'll be smelling you. Home. Love. Peace."


	6. Chapter 6

Bella propped her head up on Edward's chest, laying her chin on his flat muscles and staring up at his face from where she lay on top of him. He tucked his chin down and lowered his eyes to meet hers.

"Yes?" He asked.

She hauled herself up to put her weight on her forearms, which were on either side of his shoulders. "What do I make for dinner? For your mother?"

"Bella."

She could hear the exasperation in his voice.

"Don't 'Bella' me! Help me. Suggestions are good." She wiggled against him, trying to find a more comfortable position. "What do I make for you mother while she's here? What does she eat? Like? Does she eat human food at all? How does that work? Are you eating human food just to fit in with me? What if—"

She was cut off by Edward's hand clamped over her mouth.

"Relax, my heart. Rest. Tomorrow will be perfect, you'll see." He removed his hand from her mouth and moved it to her back, where he rubbed soothing circles into the exposed skin there.

She huffed, then arranged herself so that she was once again draped across her Edward, ear pressed against his chest, legs fitted between his. He continued to trace circles and patterns on the skin of her back with his fingers. Nothing could calm and sooth her the way Edward could. But tonight, even he couldn't keep her from worrying.

She brought her head up again to look at him. "What do I wear? Do I dress up? Down? Well I guess I can't really dress down since I'm always in jeans and t-shirts anyway, so I guess that means up, but how up? And what about tea? Tea would be lovely, I think, but what type would she like? I don't have a-"

This time Edward didn't bother with his hand. He hauled her up his body until they were face to face, and then she was swimming in the heady sensation of Edward. Edward's lips on hers, his tongue in her mouth, his breath exhaled into her. She felt the loss when his hands left her ribcage where he'd been holding onto her and then she sighed happily when she felt both his hands cupping her face, holding her to him as erased her worries, at least temporarily, with kisses and love.

* * *

The next morning, Bella moved to stretch only to find that she and Edward had reversed positions at some point during the night; she was now on her back with Edward draped across her lower body, his head resting on her stomach, a small amount of drool pooling on her skin at the corner of his open mouth, and his torso tucked neatly between her legs while his own long legs hung off the end of the bed. A glance out the window told her that the sun wasn't quite up yet. The sky was brightening with dawn, but still held the sleepy look of night-time. She absent-mindedly ran her fingers through Edward's hair as she started worrying about Boann's impending visit. She felt so unprepared.

As they walked to the kitchen, she pointed out a basket of clothes ready for the wash to Edward. "Cold water," she reminded him. "Normal cycle." She had to bite back a smile when he stopped walking and looked at her incredulously.

"The detergent is pre-measured, Edward. Don't look at me like that. You can only deliberately screw up the laundry so often. I'm not going to cave; you'll do your share of laundry eventually."

Edward smiled broadly at her. "Is that so?"

A gauntlet was being thrown, she knew. She wondered how this would play out. More, she wondered how many of their clothes would die sad, horribly washed deaths or grow stiff with dirt and mildew before one of them gave in.

She returned his smile, full force. "That is so."

He stalked down the hall toward her and trapped her against the wall. "Do you know how stubborn I am, _a_ _ghrá_?" He was pressed fully against her as she was pinned between him and the wall and was he looking down at her with a glint in his swirling eyes.

She met his gaze and smirked. "You didn't learn much in the thirty years you spent in my head, did you?"

"Cáer."

Bella whipped her head around to see the owner of the new voice. Who the hell was in her house?Edward rolled his eyes, then shifted so that he was leaning against the wall behind Bella, still maintaining contact with her, his hand brushing against hers. His body was angled toward the woman in the hall and he lifted a hand in greeting.

"Mother."

"Son," she walked toward them and stopped short, putting her hands on her hips and glaring at Edward. "You should hug your mother. And do whatever it is that Cáer is telling you to do." Boann's blue-green eyes stared down his bright green ones.

Bella couldn't help but stare at Edward's mother. The goddess' beauty was incomparable. Though her eyes were a different color than her son's, they too were dynamic, appearing to move and change. Where Edward's swirled and flexed, however, hers changed colors constantly, seeming to shift through the entire color spectrum of blue and green.

Boann's voice flowed around Bella, bringing to her mind images of the strong unyielding force of a river and the burbles and tinkles of water bouncing off of and wearing down rock and dirt. It amazed her how the very essence of a river could be distilled down into a mere voice. If the goddess' voice could indeed be called "mere." It was definitely more than human. Lyrical and musical, but not precisely—more than musical, more than lyrical, it was a delight to hear. And Bella felt a tiny bit inadequate standing before this beautiful creature.

Edward glowered at his mother. "Bella, Boann. In this incarnation she's Bella."

She waved her hand indifferently. "She's your mate, your spouse, is she not? I'll call her Cáer if I wish." Boann turned her attention back to Bella. "My dear, you are exquisite, as always." With that, she gathered Bella up into her arms and Bella felt the goddess' warmth radiate through her body.

Bella decided that if Boann wanted to call her Cáer, she could. She snickered internally at someone so summarily dismissing Edward. She herself couldn't do it, and in all their outings into town and around other humans, Edward commanded attention and deference by his simple presence. Never had she seen anyone just wave him off the way Boann had. Over Boann's shoulder, she stuck her tongue out at her Edward.

Boann's unexpected appearance in her hallway had startled her. Had she really thought that Edward's mother would knock on the front door? No, she supposed she couldn't really have expected that. Even if, the back of her head, she'd thought that perhaps guests in her home would ask to enter before they did.

Edward shook his head at Bella and Boann laughed. "Aengus, even as a mortal she's a good match for you. Just as childish and full of life as you are."

Bella turned bright red and slipped out of her mother-in-law's arms.

The other woman's laugh was the sound of water rushing over rounded stones. "It was a compliment to you, young Cáer."

Maybe mothers-in-law weren't so scary after all?

That wasn't exactly true. It was clear to Bella that Boann had the potential to be scary, but she chose to act benevolently. There was, in her movement, her carriage, her eyes, the power of the Boyne river and the fundamental power of godhood. Truthfully, there were no words in Bella's vocabulary that could accurately describe Edward's mother. And Bella rather suspected that if Aengus weren't trying so hard to fit in with her, to pass himself off as 'human Edward', that he'd give off more-than-human "other" vibes just as Boann did.

Bella gathered her wits, took a deep breath, and decided to treat Boann just as she would any other guest. It's all she knew how to do, anyway. "Boann, we were about to eat breakfast. Would you like to join us?"

She was rewarded with a beaming smile. Clearly, this was where Edward got his beauty.

* * *

After eating a breakfast of fried eggs, sausage, and black pudding (the latter Bella only poked at, though Edward and Boann seemed to enjoy it thoroughly), Boann stood in the kitchen and looked out at the back yard, a thoughtful expression on her face. She turned her head slightly in Bella's direction. "Would you like a spring behind the house?"

She blinked. "A spring?"

The river goddess nodded. "A spring. There is one very close to the surface over there." She pointed to the back corner of the lawn, close to where a huge ash tree stood sentry to a path into the wooded area.

Bella couldn't help but gape. "Dig out the spring? Would that hurt the water table? I wouldn't -"

"Not dig it out. Bring it to the surface. My hand is longer than the rock and soil are deep there. It wouldn't take much. There would be no adverse effects my dear Cáer. You and the animals would have only a new fresh water source."

"If it wouldn't hurt anything, then, yes, that would be lovely." Bella smiled softly. "Is it true that ash trees protect the purity of springs?"

Boann looked at her sharply. "You remember more than you let on, Cáer."

"Oh? No, I remember reading that when I was researching Irish myths and legends earlier this year. I spent some time on folklore, too." Bella felt uncharacteristically bold. "So, is it true? I know folklore doesn't always get it right."

Her mother in law nodded. "There is some truth to that idea, yes."

Before she knew it, Bella's stomach was telling her that lunch was needed soon. A glance at the clock told her that it was after one in the afternoon. Had she and Boann really been chatting for five hours? As though he'd been cued to enter just as she was thinking about food, Edward came in through the front door with a large bag clutched in his hand.

Bella looked from his hand to his face in question. She'd noticed in the time she'd been talking to Boann that Edward hadn't been around, but she'd been too engaged with goddess to notice that he'd left the house. "Where did you go?"

He smiled. "A Chinese restaurant in Dublin that Mrs. O'Hara recommended to me some time ago. I thought you'd like it."

"Edward, Dublin isn't exactly next door. How long have you been gone?"

He shrugged non-committally. "A while."

"You drove all the way, to Dublin!, just for Chinese food.?" She could feel her eyebrow arching its way to her hairline in disbelief.

"Yes. I thought you'd enjoy it. Mrs. O'Hara loves this place. She goes there whenever she has an excuse to go into the city. Plus, I think Mother should try Chinese food. Thus far she's refused to give it a chance." As he talked, he walked into the kitchen, and Bella could hear the rustle of Edward unpacking the bag of food he'd brought back for them.

Bella turned to her mother-in-law. "Your son is..."

"Yes," Boann agreed. "He is."

* * *

The three of them—Bella and the two impossibly good looking immortals—stood near each other in the woods behind her house. Edward had told Bella that there were two naturally occurring portals to the Otherworld in the woods, and that he'd be using one of them to bring her into his world to travel to the sidh of _Brú na Bóinne._

Bella looked between Edward and Boann in confusion. "We're going to Newgrange? But they have a lottery - the drawings for tickets to come into Newgrange for the Solstice event this week were held back in September. How are were going to get in?" Her only answer was a knowing smirk from Edward and a calming hand on her shoulder from his mother.

"You are with Aengus Mac Óg. The _Brú _is his home, and it was the Dagda's home before that. Do you think we really need human permission to enter the passage?" There was gentle amusement in Boann's lyrical voice, and Bella blushed in embarrassment.

"Ok, we can get in without permission of the visitor center - how do we get to stay? They only allow a few people in." She looked between Edward and Boann, who wore nearly identical expressions of amusement.

"They won't see us, my heart. We'll be invisible to mortals, as will the other visitors to Newgrange and Dowth South today."

"Even me? And...'Dowth South?'" She questioned. She knew she ought to know exactly what he was referencing-she'd traipsed around Dowth, Newgrange's older, smaller, neighboring passage-tomb during her initial six months here-but her brain was so overwhelmed that she couldn't remember.

Edward crooked a smile at her. "Even you. Even though you're human, you'll be escorted through the sidh by me, so you'll be invisible, as we are. Solstice dawn at Newgrange, and solstice dusk at Dowth South, remember?"

"Are we going there, too?"

Edward shook his head. "Boann and many of the others will be there, but you and I will only visit Newgrange today. I'm more interested in marking the sunrise on midwinter. And it's Newgrange that's my home, not Dowth." He wrinkled his forehead and he looked mildly irritated.

"What?"

"'Dowth South and Dowth North' sound so un-poetic. The mortals who named the two passages had no poetry in them." He shook his head sadly.

Bella snorted. She sometimes forgot, because she didn't see it often, that not only was he the patron god of love, but he was often associated with poetry, too.

Edward's lips twitched.

"What is it now?" Bella almost didn't want to ask, but she couldn't help it. The questions just seemed to be pouring out of her mouth this morning. At this rate they'd never get to Newgrange in time for the sunrise.

"You snorted." The whirls of green that made up his eyes were, for lack of a better descriptor, dancing.

Bella took a page out of Edward's play book and rolled her eyes. "And?"

His lips twitched again.

She huffed. "Not poetic enough for you?"

"It _was_ rather indelicate." He was clearly on the verge of outright laughing at her, and she was having none of it.

Bella judged the distance between the two of them, then backed up slightly, brought her foot back, and kicked him in the shin. Hard. "Indelicate, hmm?"

A giant smile graced his perfect face. "And feisty. And strong-willed. And all the more beautiful for it, my heart." He brought her back to him, and rested his forehead against hers, the whole time locking his gaze with hers.

Mollified, and more than a little dazed by the intensity of his expression, she relaxed against him. There was a small part of her, parked in the back of her mind, that recognized that she'd just been calmed down by the intense charisma and, probably, innate magic of her Love, and railed against it. The rest of her mind, however, decided to let it go for now and bring it up when time wasn't so tight and his mother wasn't around.

Edward brought his arms around her, wrapping them around her lower back with his hands resting on her sides. She was pulled tight against him. "I'm going to keep a hold of you as we enter the Otherworld, _a ghrá. _Because you are human and mortal in this form, it's dangerous to let you go while we're there. Folklore is full of humans being trapped in the land of faerie for a reason. Like most myths and lore, there is a grain of truth in those stories, even if the details are wrong." He kissed the top of her head. "Keep hold of me, ok?"

"Ok." She wasn't sure how she felt about traveling to Newgrange in this way, but Edward and Boann insisted they be at the mound a little before the first rays of sun came through the roof box to cast light into the back chamber and there was no way to get there unnoticed and in time through conventional travel. Truthfully, she felt a little silly, stepping into a ring of mushrooms, but she supposed that if she was perfectly fine with living and being in love with a god and traveling through a whole separate realm of existence, then she shouldn't start feeling ridiculous about using faery rings as a means to travel to the Otherworld.

She looked around. "Boann isn't coming with us?"

"She's there already, my heart. You're the only one who needs the portal, little mortal." He graced her with a cheeky smile at his lame rhyme, kissed the top of her head, and stepped with her over the threshold of the mushroom ring.

She was being compressed, the air forced out of her lungs, and her every cell complaining. Edward's arms around her ceased to exist, and all she could feel was a horrible crushing weight. She started to panic. What was wrong? Where was Edward?

And then she was on her feet, still encased on Edward's unfailing embrace, and in a place that was definitely _other_. It was as though someone had come through and painted the area in Technicolor-the greens greener, the yellows more yellow, the blues bluer than she'd ever seen them before. Here it felt as though she were looking at the absolute essence of each color, whereas even the truest colors in her world were pale, faded reflections. She felt a bit like Dorothy walking out into Oz for the first time. Or perhaps Alice, on the other side of the looking glass.

Edward glanced around at the space around them, nodded to himself, and then lowered his head to her ear. "One more step." She felt his arms flex around her, and then the landscape around them blurred, and she found that they were standing in front of Newgrange, watching the tourists and visitors gathered in the pre-dawn chill.

He loosened his grip on her and simply wrapped an arm about her waist as they walked through the passage to the back chamber, which was crowded with spectators from the Otherworld. Bella recognized Boann, but others were a mixture of human-appearing beings that she assumed were other Tuatha dé Danann and creatures she could only assume were actual faeries, sprites, brownies, and the like. Edward escorted her to a spot at his mother's side, and turned them so that she could see the passageway.

Bella couldn't help but hold her breath as the first beam of sunlight penetrated the dark passageway. She glanced around and saw that the handful of people allowed in through the lottery were also holding their breath. Edward Aengus, Boann, and the Others looked relaxed, if expectant.

Edward tightened his grip on her waist and bent his head so that his lips were at her ear. His voice was low enough that those around them wouldn't hear, but she could just make out his words. "Though midwinter is the longest night of the year, this day begins the long-awaited return of the sun. From now until midsummer, the days get progressively longer. The earth is getting ready for Spring, life is returning."

He stopped, and Bella understood that it was so they could watch the beam of sunlight travel along the floor of the passage until it reached the back wall and seem to pause. Then to Bella's surprise the whole back wall lit up in a golden fire that almost immediately died down to show a mass of inscriptions that appeared to be carved in thin lines of fire. Their flickering light cast eerie shadows across the chamber, highlighting the alien-ness of the realm she was in, and reinforcing for her the fact that she wasn't in Kansas anymore. Or Washington. She craned her head to ask Edward what the inscriptions meant, but just then Edward's quiet narrative resumed. "Those inscriptions only appear here, in the Otherworld. The mortals on their side of reality see only the same carvings in the stone that they always see."

Everyone, mortal and immortal, held to silence for the fifteen minutes or so that the sunbeam remained in the chamber. As it retreated, Edward again spoke quietly in her ear. "And so the sun delivers the promise of a return to warmth and life."

The crowd in the chamber began to dissipate, and it occurred to Bella that they all shouldn't have been able to fit in there. She looked around and then at Edward, who seemed to anticipate her question. He grinned. "It's a kind of magic."

Bella shook her head. "Really? Quoting Queen?"

He pressed his lips to her temple. "What's wrong with quoting Queen when appropriate?"

"Nothing at all. I'm just surprised. It's not sacrilegious or anything? We kinda had a sacred moment earlier, and now you're going Freddie Mercury on me."

He rubbed his upper lip thoughtfully. "Should I grow out a 'stache like Freddie's? What do you think?"

"Are you kidding? NO. No. Maybe in ten years when I'm forty and you're supposed to appear older. But now I like you mostly clean shaven. Maybe a little scruffy with a few days worth of stubble. But no mustache!"

Edward chuckled and squeezed her to him, once again wrapping himself around her protectively. "One short step through the sidh, and we'll be back to the ring we entered through. My mother is meeting us back at your house. She likes you as Bella, you know. She just calls you Cáer to rub me the wrong way."

"I don't mind. Even though I'm Bella, I'm also Cáer, to some degree at least. And really, your mother could call me "Hey You!" and I'd answer to it. I like her."

"Not scary?"

"Not yet. I can see that potential, though. Like I can see the potential in you. I'd hate to be the person who really pissed you off."

Edward nodded, mussing her hair as it caught in his stubble. "I hope you never see me angry, Bella. I wouldn't want to frighten you."

They traveled back through the sidh, Bella still wrapped tightly and protectively in Edward's arms, to the spot she recognized as the place where they'd entered this realm. The area had been unoccupied at the time, but now there was an older man, looking confused and scared, sitting on the ground with his knees pulled up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them. He seemed more child than adult, even as his pajamas and house shoes reminded her of _Father Knows Best_ and _My Three Sons_. He looked like he needed a friend.

As they drew closer, she reached out to the man. "Are you ok? Do you need some help?" She wriggled most of the way out of Edward's arms and was close to placing her hand on the strange man's shoulder in a gesture of comfort when she felt herself being snapped back to Edward's chest, while he twisted them around so that he was between her and the man, with what sounded for all the world like snarls coming from his throat.

"You know who I am,"Edward said in a low, feral voice that no human could produce. Of course here, she thought, he wasn't Edward, he was Aengus, and he didn't have to pretend to be something he wasn't for her. This was Aengus, son of the Dagda, unfiltered and furious. She understood why he didn't want her to see him like this.

Edward Aengus continued. "If you are smart, you will run. Now." His voice brooked no argument, and as Bella twisted so that she could see the strange man around Aengus' body, she saw him sneer at them while his shape grew and twisted into something straight out of a childhood nightmare.

"Mac Óg," the creature's lips curled up over frightening incisors. Its voice grated on her ears. The sound reminded her of nails being dragged down a chalk board.

From out of the corner of her eye, she saw a tall woman striding purposefully toward them. Bella was too worried to notice much about her, other than the fact that she shared Edward's inhuman beauty and stunning green eyes. As the woman drew closer, Bella noticed that the snarling creature before them shrank back slightly, cringing into itself more than it had been.

When the woman drew even with her and Edward, Bella saw that her hair was slightly more brown than Edward's, but was wild and thick and seemed to barely be contained by the gold and white threads binding the long plait. She was stunning, and Bella couldn't seem to stop staring.

"Brother," she acknowledged Edward with a nod.

"Sister," he tilted his head toward her, though his eyes never left the creature before him.

"I'll take your Cáer back to the mortal realm, brother. You know she will be safe with me. You can deal with," she gestured disdainfully toward the creature, "this when she's safe and out of harm's way."

Edward nodded.

The woman moved so that she was close to Bella and Edward, and Bella was shifted from one set of protective arms to another as though she were a small child and not a fully grown woman. There was a small part of her that bristled at this. The greater part of her understood, however, and she didn't fight it. She looked at Edward with worry. "Ed-"

"My sister will take care of you. I'll be back at the house as soon as I'm done here." His face and voice were peculiar—he was wholly focused on the creature in front of him, but clearly trying not to speak harshly to her.

Bella knew she was out of her depth here, so she nodded her assent, and reluctantly turned her attention to the woman he'd entrusted her to.

The woman holding her stepped just _so_ and the two of them were suddenly in the woods, standing in front of a gigantic and dignified oak tree Bella thought she recognized. She was released from the confinement of the woman's arms suddenly, and she staggered a bit with the newfound freedom of movement.

She looked around and saw that they weren't at the faery rings Edward had pointed out as portals into his world. She turned, her face, she was sure, a map of confusion and question. "How—I thought—Edward said—" She took a deep breath. "We didn't travel back through the ring. I thought my mortality required using a portal."

The other woman nodded. "It does. But the oak is my tree. For me and those I carry with me, it serves as a portal between realms. Now, my brother will not be pleased if you aren't warm and safe and happy in your home when he returns, so let us make our way." With that pronouncement, she set off, again with that purposeful stride, toward what Bella assumed with the house.

Bella had to hurry to catch up to the auburn beauty. "Is Edward alright? Will that- what was that? Will whatever it is hurt him?"

"My brother is very capable, young Cáer. Do not worry. Without you there for him to worry about, the lower denizens like that are of no concern."

When they reached the edge of the woods and came to her lawn, Bella saw Boann crouched on the other side of the yard, at the base of the large ash tree they'd discussed the previous day. As the two of them crossed the threshold of the lawn, Boann looked up and glided to them.

She nodded toward Bella's companion in meeting. "Brigid. It is good of you to take care of our Bella- Cáer."

"Of course," Brigid answered. "I would not let my brother's wife come to harm when I could prevent it." She paused, and her eyes seemed to lose focus. She held that look for several breaths before she refocused on Boann. "Mac Óg will be along before long. What he has to deal with in the sidh is no great matter."

Boann nodded and turned to Bella. "Come inside. We'll make tea and discuss Newgrange, and I shall answer questions I know you have."

Bella allowed herself to be led across the grass. After a few steps, she turned to Brigid, who hadn't moved. "You're welcome in our home, Brigid. Will you join us?"

The invitation seemed to start the goddess out of whatever thought process she'd been lost in. "Of course. I'll join you until my brother returns to you. Thank you for the invitation."

The three women walked into her home through the back door and Bella felt something _shift_, as though something fundamental had changed. She froze and looked at the two goddesses, who were murmuring quietly to each other, their heads pressed together. They didn't seem to be alarmed, and gave no indication that they felt anything, so Bella stayed quiet as she went about the kitchen to prepare hot tea for herself and her guests.

_And here,_ she thought to herself, _I thought_ _that meeting Boann would be frightening. Now I have Boann and Brigid—Brigid!—in my kitchen. _

Boann ended her whispered conversation with Brigid and walked over to Bella. "What's wrong, daughter? You look troubled."

"I felt something change when we came in through the back door. What was that?" Bella paused after putting the kettle of water on the stove top and looked up into the composed face of her mother-in-law. "Did you feel it too?"

"Brigid is, among other things, a protector. Your home is now warded." Boann tilted her head, studying Bella for a moment. The goddess' eyes were shifting through varying shades of blue at the moment. "I'm surprised you noticed, actually. Mortals are usually oblivious."

"Warded? Against what?" She couldn't keep the worry from her voice. Surely Brigid had better things to do...they wouldn't have placed the wards unless they thought it was needed, right?

"As you saw this morning, not all from the Otherworld are benevolent. Folklore attests to this, if I'm not mistaken. While most of the Folk know better than to challenge a deity such as myself or my son, there are those whose mischievousness and stupidity lead them make poor decisions. This sometimes, it seems, includes challenging the Mac Óg." Boann shook her head. "Intelligence is not a requirement for being a denizen."

"So Edward is ok?"

"Of course."

Bella grinned. "Do the wards mean you can't just pop into my house unannounced, now?"

"Only you, my heart, would ask my mother that instead of asking for more information about what they are warding against."

Bella turned to see her Edward in the doorway, and seconds later she was tackling him and pressing her nose into his neck to breathe in the wonderful smell that was only him. She felt his arms come up and wrap around her and for a moment it didn't matter that she didn't really know what was going on or that she had the niggling feeling that her life going forward would make Days of Our Lives look tame by comparison. Edward was safe and in her arms.


	7. Chapter 7

"So what are they warding our house against?"

"It is a precaution."

"A precaution?"

"Yes, _a ghrá_. I believe you compared my family...and extended family, to the daytime soap operas you watched growing up? The soaps don't even compare. And that's just the Tuatha dé Danann. When you factor in the larger "family" of Celtic deities and miscellaneous demi-gods, you have a huge potential for mischief. You and I being back here, united, with you as a mortal and me in a less powerful form, is just asking for trouble from both immediate and extended family." Edward rested his chin on the top of Bella's head and wrapped his arms around her as she sat in his lap, curled against his chest.

He was livid, in the Otherworld, when that lesser demi-god had gone through with his charade with Bella even after seeing her with _him_, Aengus Mac Óg. Had the creature any sense at all, it would've scurried off as soon as it recognized who was it was encountering at the entry point. To have actually challenged one of the Tuatha, to have snarled, ineffective though it was, at him and stayed there even as his sister Brigid walked up, was beyond reason.

Of course this meant that someone had prodded that pathetic creature to antagonize him. Now the question was who would dare?

No. That wasn't right. His cousins, siblings, the Tuatha, the other Celtic deities...they would all _dare_. A better question would be who would bother? Or be interested in annoying him? Who would chance putting his mortal mate in jeopardy?

He felt the rumble move through his chest before he could control it and squash the response. In its wake was a sigh of remorse when he felt Bella lift her head up off of his chest. Three decades of not having to check his responses (because no one in the mortal realm could interact with him) was leaving him thin on self-control. He would've preferred to have her remain where she was against him.

"Edward? Did you just growl?" Her brown eyes were so dark that her irises nearly matched her pupils—something that occurred when she was particularly worried—and she had a crease between her eyebrows from scrunching her face up at him.

He reached up and used his thumb to gently smooth out the crease. "Perhaps it was a growl. Did it bother you?"

She pushed up and tickled his jawline with the tip of her nose. "Disturbingly, it was kind of a turn on." She pressed her soft lips against his chin and pulled back slightly. "But what were you growling about?"

It was a turn on, was it? He'd have to remember that. "I was thinking, my heart, about that-" He cut himself off. How to characterize that waste of flesh that had tried to trick her in their travels? "That idiot," he continued, "who dared try to lure you and then challenge me when were on our way back here this morning."

Bella blinked at him. "Who—what—was that, anyway?"

"It was a no-name demi-god with no rank or power to speak of. For it to not tuck tail and run when it recognized me was ludicrous." Edward could feel the rumble begin deep in his chest again, but managed to squash it this time before it became audible to his love.

The crease between her beautiful eyebrows was back. "So it's something that would normally back down to you?"

"It is a creature who would normally never put itself in a position to have to back down to me; it would never challenge me to begin with." Of its own accord, his hand began stroking the soft waves of her hair as it fell between her shoulder blades. "With both my sister and I there, it should've been beyond accommodating."

"So that means something was motivating it to behave abnormally." Bella shifted her body around, trying, he assumed, to face him without craning her neck. This meant that she was straddling him.

So of course the last thing he wanted to do was talk about the potential plots and idiocy swirling around them in their return to Eire. He ran his hands up her thighs and rested them on her hips, giving her a firm squeeze.

"Edward," she said in a warning voice. "No distracting me." Once again she was 'Stern Bella', expecting full cooperation from him.

He kept, with effort, the disappointment from his face when she scooted back on his lap so that there was more distance between their torsos, even as she was still straddling him. She was adorable and enticing with this attitude and all he wanted to do was pull her in and throw her down on the couch. He forced himself to focus on her face and eyes and what she was saying to him.

"Why would that creature—are you sure it doesn't have a name?—be motivated to behave that way?"

He massaged her hips. "Welcome to the life and times of the Celtic pantheon, my Bella. Someone was driving it—it does have a name, but not one worth speaking—to irritate me. Or send a message. But it was, mostly, just an irritant." His lips twisted into a wry smile. "Perhaps it was just someone's idea of welcoming me home."

Bella snorted and shook her head. "Right. So, what does this mean to us?"

"It means you'll be seeing more of my endearing family," he said with a genuine smile. "And your life may be more interesting for the foreseeable future." He chuckled. "Did you just snort?"

Her lips quirked up. "Perhaps it was a snort," she mocked. "Did it bother you?"

He pulled her small body up closer to his own and rubbed his nose against her jawline, as she'd done to him. "Disturbingly, it was kind of endearing." He pressed his lips to her adorable chin and glanced up at her eyes. "Don't roll your eyes at me," he admonished. "Haven't you been telling me how rude it is?"

"Endearing? Really? You have strange tastes, you silly love god."

"My tastes are perfect, my heart. I'm a god. How can they be otherwise?" He schooled his face into an expression of pure innocence.

Pointedly, she rolled her eyes again. "Edward, you like cheesy eighties pop. I feel fully qualified to question your tastes." She paused. "And you are no where near innocent. Don't try that with me."

"You were born too late to develop an appreciation for 'cheesy eighties pop,' don't use my fondness for it against me. You know not of what you speak." He began massaging her sides as he spoke. He wanted her pressed against him again, he wanted to move on to topics that were of more interest to him, namely those that involved his heart, free of clothing, and wrapped around his naked body.

"About my lack of innocence..." He pulled her closer still, so that their torsos were once again flush against one another. He pulled her hips down against his own, grinding into her, creating a delicious friction. He brought his lips level with her ear and took one soft earlobe between his lips. "Bella," he moaned against her skin, "I want to feel you."

He delighted in the feel of her small breaths against her skin as she gasped. He could feel her heart pounding in her chest as they were pressed together, the beats of her heart somehow merging with the beats of his own until he couldn't determine whose were whose.

"I think I'd like to take advantage of your lack of innocence," she purred in his ear. He shivered as he felt her hands slide under his shirt along the skin of his stomach and chest.

"However," she continued, "I'd really rather you answer me and stop using your inhuman good looks to distract me. What's up with the creeper in the Otherworld? I can tell you have some ideas that you aren't telling me."

All the air left his lungs and he stared at her incredulously. He looked down at the outline of her hand under his shirt and back at her serious, if somewhat amused expression.

Edward pouted up at her. "You want to talk?"

"I want you to stop trying to redirect my attention."

"My heart, I'm not trying to redirect you so much as I am trying to take advantage of you straddling me and looking so enticing. We can talk about things that go bump in the night anytime. How often do I get to have you wrapped around me?"

He was rewarded with a dazzling smile and the bounce of her breasts when she laughed. "I find myself wrapped around you quite often, actually."

He moved so that he had his forehead pressed to hers. He closed his eyes. "I never want to take this for granted. We waited for so long."

"Edward," she breathed, and gathered him to her chest as much as she was able, and cradled his head in her arms. "I just want to understand this world I find myself in," she whispered, half to herself.

"I think I want to go up to the attic today. Go through those boxes. Whatcha think?" He smiled at the way she was bouncing in the doorway.

"What if, my heart, opening those boxes unleashes unknown evils into the world?"

Her beautiful eyes rolled. "They're boxes in the attic, Edward. Not a mythical jar full of evils and ills left to a curious woman. Just boxes. Besides, Pandora's box—er, jar—is just a myth."

"_I'm_ just a myth. What are you implying?"

"Well, yeah, but you're real."

Edward smirked at her.

"Wait. No. Really?" His heart looked at him curiously. "That's not the only thing that's real, is it?"

"There are a great many things that are real." He pointed at the bookshelf to her left. "Those books, for example, are real."

"Edward!"

"I'm just pointing out the realness of a good many objects." He winked at her, loving how her skin flushed when she got annoyed.

"So really. Pandora's jar?"

"Safely hidden away."

"The Golden Fleece?"

"I've seen it. I believe Alice would use the word "sparkly" as a descriptor."

"Hades' helmet?"

"It does indeed make the wearer invisible."

"Excalibur?"

He hesitated. "Excalibur...Mallory didn't get it all, or even largely, right. But I suppose you could say Excalibur exists, yes."

Bella was leaning against the door frame now, staring at him fascination. "Ok, so. Hrunting? Leprechaun gold? The Holy Grail? The Ark of the Covenant? Mjolnir? Seven-league boots? Argo? Chupacabra?"

Edward could feel his smile widen as he listened to her questions. "Beowulf and his variety of swords all real. Real, but the Leprechauns don't share. Indiana Jones, much? If you ever meet Thor, you'll see Mjolnir for yourself. I had a pair of seven-league boots once—miss them. Argo I've not seen for myself, but I understand a talking ship is rather disconcerting. And chupacabras aren't common, but they do exist."

His Bella spluttered. "Really?"

Edward shrugged. "It's been a millennium or so since I've actually seen a pair of seven-league boots, but I think I could get a pair for you to try out."

"That's just silliness." She waved a dismissive hand in his direction. "And don't think I didn't notice you avoiding some of those questions. Moving on, I gather from earlier comments that the gods of the other Celtic pantheons are real, too?"

"Yes."

"And the gods of other cultures. You mentioned Thor. So, Loki and Freyja?"

"Both real. As are Freyr, Odin, Baldr, and the Norns."

"So the Greek gods and goddesses?"

"As annoying as my own relatives. More, in some cases. I'm not a fan of Hera." He chuckled lightly at his Bella's wide-eyed expression. "Bella, are you ok?"

"You know Hera?" She squeaked out.

"Well, 'know' is a strong term. I've met her. Glad I'm not in her pantheon and don't have to deal with her on a regular basis."

"Yeah, she comes off as, um, strong-willed. Glad Boann is your mom and not her. Oh! Have you been to Camelot? Ooooh. Did Arthur exist?"

"Arthur is interesting. He's as much myth as I am; that is to say, the stories are ridiculous in some ways, but those myth cycles, much like my own, started with a grain of truth. It's just that _his_ captured the public imagination and then people went crazy embellishing."

Her beautiful brown eyes narrowed at him. "You so didn't answer my question. Camelot? A real Arthur?"

He sighed. His heart was like a bulldog today. "Yes. It's not how it's described in most of the stories that are popular, but it exists. It's on the same plane as the Otherworld, but separate from the sidh of the Tuatha."

Bella looked thoughtful, then she smirked at him. He wanted to kiss the smirk right off her face. How long was she going to keep up with this line of questioning?

"I sense some jealousy, Edward. Upset that some warlord/noble/king/whoever the hell he really was on the other side of the Irish Sea outshines you in popular imagination?" She was grinning wickedly at him now, her eyes twinkling with mischief. Edward wasn't sure he liked that look on her.

Of course he liked that look on her. He would just prefer it directed at someone else.

"Anyway. Back to what I came in here for."

She raised up on her toes and stretched her fingertips to tap the top of the door frame. "I was thinking that if we find anything sentimental in the boxes, or something that looks like it needs to be returned to the original owners, I could get the seller's contact info from the lawyer or estate agent, and forward it on, and I'm really excited about what might be in there. Scrap books? Clothes? It's a little adventure. Not an adventure, of course, like craziness in the Otherworld, but still a mini-one, don't you think?"

Edward grinned at the babble and mini-speech, but he couldn't keep his eyes off the skin of her waist, exposed by the shirt rising up in her stretch.

"Bella," he whispered. His voice was textured, layered in a way that humans could not vocalize. Usually he was able to keep his voice to that of a human, but the woman in front of him had a way of weakening his concentration and self control.

As a result, his voicing of her name was..._more_. More than just her name. It was spirit calling out to spirit, lust radiating out to lust.

At hearing her name, her eyes darkened and he was greeted with an expression of mixed love and lust.

"Edward," she replied in a throaty voice.

He launched himself up off of the chair and tackled her, wrapping his arms around her slim figure and scooping her up from the floor, holding her body against his own as he rotated around and landed on his back, sliding a few feet on the hardwood floor from the momentum. By the time they slid to a stop, they were kissing furiously, her hands fiercely knotted in his hair, and his ripping the threadbare t-shirt from her torso.

"_A ghr__á_," he groaned against the skin of her neck when her mouth moved to the sensitive skin of the shell of his ear.

"_A chuisle mo chroí,_" she whispered back.

His heart pounded. "You remember?"

"I looked it up," she admitted. "I hope I got it right."

Edward clutched her to him, inhaling the scent wafting off of her hair, loving the softness of her body as it was pressed against his. "Close enough, my heart." He rumbled in contentment as he rubbed his hands against her fleece-covered legs, feeling the soft and strong lines of her legs under the fabric. He rocked his hips against her.

"I need to be in you."

She nodded fervently and lifted her hips up from him so that he could peel the pajama bottoms from her.

He winked.

Their clothes shimmered and disappeared.

"Edward?"

He pointed at his lap and prominent erection. "Sit," he said firmly.

She looked as though she were at the point of argument, then smiled wickedly at him as she straddled his hips and encased him in her body.

They groaned in pleasure simultaneously.

Bella leaned forward so that her nipples scraped against Edward's bare chest and licked his chin. "The clothes, Edward?"

He waggled his eyebrows and moved his hips against her. "I'm a god, and here I'm close to home so I thought I'd take advantage of my powers and speed the process up."

"And you didn't do this before?" If humans could purr, she would've been. Her eyes were nearly closed as they rocked against each other. He had a hard time understanding how she was even talking while looking so relaxed.

Edward trailed his fingers from her waist up the delicate skin of her back to cup her neck and cradle the back of her head while their bodies continued moving and rocking against one another. "I'll keep you naked permanently, my heart, if you will allow it."

"Mmm. I might."

He stopped talking and concentrated on the slap of skin against skin, their sweat mingling together and their moans harmonizing in the air around them. Bella's hands were planted on the hardwood floor on either side of his shoulders, her knees locked against his hips, squeezing him with each movement. She was beauty incarnate, he thought.

She leaned closer into him so that she was almost lying flat, their sweaty skin creating a delicious friction as they moved. "I love you," she whisper-moaned into his neck.

He pushed them both up into an approximation of a sitting position, and he paused, still in her, their chests heaving. Edward pulled Bella's head up so that their lips could meet in a tender, searing kiss. "And I love you," he returned seriously.

Those soul-piercing brown eyes of hers were huge and earnest and so filled with love the breath caught in his throat. Those thirty years of half-life were worth it, for this.

This moment, this time together, this peace. It was where they belonged, and he'd cut out his own beating heart before he'd be separated from his Cáer again.

"Sit." She pointed to a dusty patch of floor near a large old trunk. The canvas covering the wood was badly damaged, coming away from the wood beneath it and buckling near the scarred and worn wooden staves and hardware adoring the chest. Of the two locks on the front, one looked as though it were totally broken. Bella found herself wondering what the trunk's history was, where it had been, how it had traveled. Had it seen the inside of a ship's cargo hold? Been lashed down to a cart or wagon? How long had it been here in the attic?

With an amused look on his face, Edward did as he was told, folding himself into a seated position next to the trunk.

She followed him and paused, appreciating the workmanship that went into the beat-up container. "I love old trunks," Bella sighed happily, running her hands across the flat top. "I wonder how difficult it would be to restore it."

Edward ran his hand up her calf in a light caress. "Once we go through the contents, we store them or return them, as the case may be, and take it up to Patrick, your friend in Drogheda. You know he loves restoring wood furniture; I imagine a trunk like this would be quite similar."

Bella nodded thoughtfully. "If nothing else, he'd be able to refer us to someone." She looked down at the swirling green eyes of her love. "Thank you for remembering him! I'd forgotten about his hobby."

"My pleasure, _a ghrá._" He grinned up at her and gestured grandly at the trunk. "Shall we discover what treasures this chest holds?" Bella's breath caught in her throat, and for a couple of seconds, she forgot to breathe. The dusty light in the attic softened Edward's features a bit, cast him in almost shadow, and he was, literally, breathtaking. _Such beauty_, she thought, stunned.

"Bella?"

His concerned face was looking up at her, and she remembered to breathe.

She smiled sheepishly down at him. "Sorry. You're just so...pretty."

Edward laughed and fluttered his eyes at her. He opened his mouth to reply, and another voice answered for him.

"If you meet his father, dear, you'll understand."

She whipped her head around to face Edward's mother. "Boann!" She cried as she bounced over to the goddess. She composed herself when she reached her mother-in-law, and gently leaned in to kiss her on the cheek in greeting. "I've met his mother," she whispered in the other woman's ear, "and it's plain to me where he gets his great beauty."

Bella felt herself being gathered up in surprisingly strong arms and crushed into a hug. "My young Cáer, flattery gets you everywhere in this family. Thank you."

"Well," Bella murmured, looking at Edward and Boann, "I suppose this means you can still just pop into our house unannounced."

Boann patted her cheek, and Bella felt a bit like a favorite pet. "I won't abuse it often, daughter."

"We were about to plunder the treasures of this mystery chest, mother." Edward again gestured toward the trunk with a grand sweep of his arm. "Would you like to join us?"

His mother laughed lightly and shook her head. "I don't think I shall stay for such an adventure. I will return later to visit with you both." Abruptly, she was gone.

Blinking in surprise, Bella turned to Edward. "That was random."

He nodded thoughtfully. "It was. I wonder what she's up to?" He reached up and tugged on her hand. "Can we open this with you on my lap? It's hurting my neck, craning my head to look up at you like this."

"Of course!" She was delighted to settle into his warm embrace. Once she was comfortably arranged on his lap and they were facing the trunk, she slumped in recognition: the trunk was locked. Well, with its one good lock it was locked. How was she going to get it open?

"What is it, my heart?" Edward's concerned voice filled her ear.

"It's locked."

She felt the rumble of his chuckle vibrate against her back. "You have me, remember?"

Bella decided it was perfectly ok to roll her eyes at him. "Of course. How could I forget? Do you have a magic lock-picking set, then?"

He scoffed. "Nothing so menial." He waved his hand casually at the trunk and she heard the lock release.

She twisted in his lap to stare at him. "Seriously?"

"Seriously." His smile was broad and more than a little cocky.

Her eyes were growing round and wide in surprise, she could feel it. "You're too much," she muttered. She was just beginning to understand what it meant to be together with a deity.

Bella moved so that she was out of Edward's lap and on her knees in front of the beat up old trunk. She carefully opened the lid, worried that the worn hinges wouldn't like the stress of being opened. A shallow tray lined in peeling and yellowed paper greeted her. It was full of small objects: a wooden top, marbles, jacks, a worn wooden yo-yo, some other wooden toys she couldn't identify, some moth-eaten knitted caps and mittens, and a badly tarnished set of a silver hairbrush, comb, and mirror. A small porcelain doll's head was in the corner of the tray and it gave Bella the heebie jeebies. She reached over to it and turned the head around so that it wasn't looking at her.

Edward laughed. "Problem with the doll, my heart?"

He continued chuckling and Bella turned her head to glare at him. It wasn't funny. "It's not funny! It's creepy! There's no body! Just disturbing cherubic cheeks and big eyes!" She pushed her bottom lip out and pouted at him. "I didn't want it staring at me."

The swirling in his eyes sped up, seeming to match his laughter, which only increased after she pouted at him. "You seem ok with my less-than-human side, no fear when you see and hear me growling and snarling, have no fear when my mother just pops in, and yet...a broken doll scares you?" He took a deep breath, and Bella hoped that meant he was done laughing. She was seriously considering turning full around and clamping her hand over his mouth.

"Edward," she began in a low warning voice, "It is a bodiless head. That is inherently creepy. How can you not know this?"

"Emmett and those movies," he growled out, his voice a contrast to the still merrily swirling green.

Bella grinned. "I blame Emmett for a lot of my quirks. You'll get used to it. Hey do you know what these are?" She pointed to the strange wooden objects in the tray.

She felt him move so that he was close behind her, and sighed happily when she felt his arms wrap around her.

"Whirligigs."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Whirligigs. That's what those are."

"And what does a whirligig do?"

"It spins. Whirls, if you will."

"How instructive."

"It makes a whirly noise, too."

"You're not being very forthcoming."

"You're adorable when you're irritated."

"I'm not irritated yet, Edward."

"I know. I'm working on it."

Bella rolled her eyes and craned her neck to glare at him. "Are you trying to say, my dearest, dearest love, that I'm not adorable normally? That you have to annoy me to find me so?" If she'd been facing him dead-on, and standing, she would've had her fists on her hips and her toe tapping. Her 'stern' face was much harder to pull off when she was twisted around trying to look back and up at him.

For just a moment, his expression dropped and the swirling of his eyes paused, and then he smiled at her brilliantly, all perfect teeth and smugness. "I'm saying, you darling, sweet, amazing woman, that normally you are ravishing, and I occasionally find you adorable in addition."

She couldn't help but laugh. "You're ridiculous. But good save there mister love god." She leaned back into him and was happy to feel his arms tighten as he squeezed her affectionately. "So how do these whirligigs work?"

Some time later, Edward's stomach rumbled and she paused, looking around. They'd gone through the toys in the tray (minus the creepy doll head, which she resolutely kept facing the back corner of the tray), Edward showing her how the whirligigs worked, teaching her the rules to, and then playing, jacks, and the two of them trying to upstage each other with yo-yo tricks. He'd had to restore the string on the yo-yo and whirligigs as the originals had rotted, and Bella found both toys to be great fun.

"We should break for lunch. Then I suppose I should stop messing with the toys and actually find out what is under the tray."

Edward nodded his agreement. He was still trying to get a yo-yo trick he swore he'd learned in a recent incarnation to work. He had a look of intense concentration on his face, and once again Bella was struck by his beauty. Even with his forehead furrowed a touch and his tongue sticking out slightly between his lips, he was divine. Her heart thumped a little louder for him.

With a sigh, he dropped the toy into the tray and reached out his hand to her. "To lunch!" He announced as though he had to corral a whole herd of people.

She giggled, pleased to see her Edward so light-hearted. He'd been frustratingly tense after their encounter in the Otherworld, and she was grateful that these little toys from another time had distracted him.

After lunch, they once again found themselves in the attic, parked in front of the big trunk. Or, as Edward had referred to it, the treasure chest.

Bella took a deep breath, somehow feeling that whatever was under the shallow tray that'd contained children's toys would be more significant, though perhaps not quite as much fun.

She exhaled slowly and felt Edward's chin on her shoulder, and his arms lightly wrapped around her waist. There was something so fundamentally _right_ about being next to him like this; bodies pressed together, body warmth mingling, breathing in sync. She closed her eyes and leaned her head gently against his, absorbing the stability and comfort he offered.

Thusly centered, she gave his forearm a squeeze and asked, "Shall we?"

She saw in her peripheral vision, and felt, him nod. "We shall."

The tray was gingerly lifted out, Bella aware that the thin wood that comprised the tray was quite fragile and dry. Under the tray were several neat stacks of fabric. At first glance, Bella noted quilts, towels, and embroidered linens. Nestled between the stacks were a few thin boxes, tied shut with decaying twine. Reverently running her fingers over the pattern of the neatly folded quilt on the far right, she reached for one of the bound boxes.

It was perhaps an inch tall, and just over a foot long, maybe nine inches wide. It had some weight to it, though it wasn't heavy. "It's like a present within a present! A nested box of mysteries!" Bella exclaimed, eliciting a chuckle from Edward, the vibrations of which rolled through his chest and resonated within her own. She loved hearing him laugh.

Bella carefully opened removed the twine and opened the box. It was filled with papers. Yellowed and sometimes split at well-worn folding creases, the top paper looked to be governmental. Or at least a form that had been filled in by hand-the ink from both printed and handwritten portions faded and in some cases yellow.

She lightly ran a finger down the page. "Corrigan. That name sounds familiar. Have we met any Corrigans here, Edward?"

"Not this time around," he answered quietly.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a/n: This is the chapter where I start to seriously diverge from established myth and start making up my own rules. The first five or six chapters I tried to stick with the Irish mythological cycles and other mythologies with only a little deviation. Now, though, it's pretty solidly "starshinedown's twist on myth and legend." My humble apologies to those of you who are die-hard students of mythology. No mobs with pitchforks and fire, please.

"Not this time around? You mean...we knew Corrigans in one of our incarnations?"

Edward reached around her and gently pulled the top few papers from the box in her hands. "Do you see this?" He paused at one particularly fragile and worn looking document.

Bella nodded and scanned it. "It looks like...a marriage certificate?"

"Yes."

She could hear the smile in his voice and it warmed her.

One of his long, elegant fingers traced the names on the certificate. "Katherine Mooney and Paul Corrigan. Though you preferred 'Kate.'"

She looked more closely at the paper in front of her. "Married in 1891. Wow."

"You were a beautiful bride." His voice was filled with wistfulness, and, Bella thought, some nostalgia.

What would it be like, she wondered, to have all those lives, all those memories crammed into your head? She supposed that not being human, his memory and brain worked differently, had less difficulty maintaining and sorting large amounts of information than mere humans typically did. Nonetheless, it must be daunting; all those lives, plus his own as Aengus.

She looked at her love and saw a look on his face that said he was lost in his memories. Leaning into him, she trailed a finger along his chin. "Tell me about them. Us. That life."

He sighed and nodded.

"The Corrigan family was the family I was born into in that incarnation; as Paul Corrigan, I had two human brothers, Matthew and John. The Corrigans...the Corrigans are an old family. Very old. Even without my reincarnating into the family, without you marrying into it, they are old. Connected. Influential."

Bella cocked her head to the side in thought. "What does the family's age and influence have to do with me and you incarnating into it? We didn't know what we were when were Kate and Paul."

"I don't just mean the human world, human connections, my heart. The progenitor of the family, Corrig, was the result of a Tuatha and human union." He paused, and gently placed the papers back in the box, the wrapped his arms back around her waist. Bella felt the familiar course of electricity flow from his arms through her body.

She'd never get tired of feeling his arms around her.

"Corrig's descendants retained their ties to the Otherworld as they forged ties to the human world. Over the generations, each generation was brought into the knowledge of the alliance as the prior generation saw fit. In the time I was born into the family, our father brought us three boys into his library and sat us down for a business meeting, explained the history to us and when we finally believed him, he assigned us roles. I understand that in other times, family members were raised knowing about the Tuatha alliance."

"At any rate, the brother Matthew was the eldest of the three of us. His line was, is still, I imagine, responsible for retaining the family's connection to the Otherworld. As the second son, Paul, I was expected to expand the family's influence in this human world. John was to act as the family's historian."

"At the time that Paul and Kate died, each of the sons had been successful. Paul was a very, very successful lawyer who was hip-deep in in all of gossip and intrigues and stories in Dublin and had a huge amount of influence amongst the elite and lettered members of society. Matthew aligned himself very closely to a Tuatha patron—he never did tell me/Paul who—and John passed the family records onto his own son."

Bella rubbed her thumb along the firm muscles of his forearm and leaned back, into his warmth. She asked, "Did we live here, then?"

"No. We all lived in Dublin." He rested his cheek against her temple. "I don't know right now which branch did move here, though I don't think the woman you bought the house from was of that family. I would've felt it if she were when we met her."

He would've 'felt it' when they met her? Bella felt her forehead furrow in confusion. This whole world of mythology and mythological rules was going to make her brain melt. Who knew there were so many tidbits to learn about?

"You would've felt it? So, you can tell when we meet the descendants of our incarnations?"

Edward chuckled, and the vibration rumbled through her ribs. "No, I would feel it if I came into contact with a family tied to the Tuatha."

Bella turned wholly around so that she could face him. "Huh? Why would you feel that?"

He shrugged. "Such families are marked."

Marked? Now she was confused. Images of cattle brands flashed through her mind, and she didn't like it.

"Like...territory? Edward, you don't seriously mark us as territory, do you?"

"Not territory, so much as a warning to others. 'Don't mess with these people or there will be retribution.' It's part of the reason families like the Corrigans choose to align themselves with Tuatha or other powerful members of the Otherworld."

"I fail to see how that isn't marking territory." Bella tried to keep her tone level, but the idea of a family being marked...marked as territory made her uncomfortable.

No, not comfortable. Uncomfortable was a pebble in her shoe. She was freaked out. She couldn't keep the idea of cattle brands out of her head, even if Edward did say it wasn't territorial. Weren't cattle brands there to tell others 'keep your hands off of my beef or there will be consequences'?

"_A grhá_, it is a mark of protection. Alligiance. Alliance. Not possession." He rested his forehead against hers and blew out a long breath. "It is more like the alignment of minor nobles with those more powerful; the minor nobles carry the heraldry, sometimes, of the powerful patron; send their sons to battle at the request of the patron house; and when they are threatened they are offered the protection of their patron house."

He smiled and brought his hand up to stroke her cheek with his thumb. "I spent enough time in your head to have a good guess at what you're thinking. Such families are not cattle, Bella. They are not regarded as such, nor treated as such."

She leaned into his hand and closed her eyes, giving in to the sensations the caress elicited. "Do you have a family aligned to you, too?" _Please says no, _she thought to herself. _Please say no_.

"No, _a ghrá_. I haven't felt the need for such an alignment in many thousands of years. Rest easy."

"How are they marked? Like a tattoo or a brand or something?" She resisted the urge to give her body a thorough once-over. Was she marked, too, now that she was so attached to Edward-slash-Aengus?

"I think this conversation might take a while. Would you like to get more comfortable?" He kissed her temple as she nodded her agreement. They arranged themselves so that Edward's back was against the trunk, legs stretched along the wooden floor in front of him, and Bella was settled in between his legs, her back snug against his chest and his arms draped comfortably around her torso. He again brought his hand up to cup her cheek and she almost immediately closed her eyes and relaxed into him.

"The mark is one of magic. It is not a symbol, a marking in the way that you are thinking. It is," he paused, seeming to search for a way to explain it. "The best word I can think of is 'aura.' When a family aligns itself to the Tuatha in such a way, each member of the family, whether they are aware of the alliance or not, carries with them this aura, and all members of the Otherworld-other Tuatha, the Firbolgs, fay, other deities, and so on, can sense it."

Edward's voice was melodic and calming. With his mouth so close to her ear, he spoke quietly and she let the sound of his voice wash over her.

"So, you implied you used to have such alliances. Did you end them? Can they just...stop?" She was trying to wrap her brain around all this and to keep the cattle-brand image out of her head. Magic aura or not, a brand was a brand was a brand, right?

"Both the family and the Tuatha dé Dannan in the alliance can terminate it. There are certain rules to that. It can't just be a flippant declaration of 'I don't want to be aligned with you anymore.' But once the alliance is terminated, the mark - aura, if you prefer - drops from all family members."

"So people in these families are just born with this aura?"

"Yes."

"Weird." She shook her head back and forth slowly, letting all this new information percolate in her head.

"Am I marked, too? Since I'm tied to you?" She kept her eyes closed and raised her hand so that it was holding his against her cheek. She felt calmer with his reassurances, but her unease hadn't quite dissipated. "And...did something happen with this whole 'marking thing' when I was Kate? This whole idea is really freaking me out, more than I think it should be."

She let the gentle caress of his fingers along her cheekbone relax her further, until she was practically a puddle of goo in his arms. She felt her breathing slow and regulate itself to Edward's. The questions racing through her mind begged for attention, but she forced herself to remain relaxed, and to wait for Edward to gather his thoughts.

xxx-xx-xxx

Edward's mind was spinning. He knew beyond a doubt that it was no coincidence that he and Bella were now living in a house that was somehow connected to the Corrigan family. It was too much to ask him to believe in such a coincidence. He pondered the who's-and-why's of this new revelation while he answered his heart's question.

"No, my dear Bella, you do not bear a mark of alignment. It is obvious to us mystical and mythological creatures, however, that you are no simple mortal. It is not a mark, so much, nothing magical in that way, but an aspect of your physical presence." How to word it? It was plain to him, looking at her, just as it would be plain to his family, the dryads, nymphs, and other non-human sentient beings of this earth, that the slip of a woman so comfortably nestled against him was no ordinary reincarnated soul, no ordinary human.

How did he explain that she practically exuded magic? Not the kind of magic one wields, but the essence of it, of the Otherworld?

He could hardly believe that this had never come to his attention before. However, according to his mother and sister, when he and Caér chose to be born as human and forget their immortal selves for a mortal lifetime, they both had this same "otherness" to them, unlike regular humans. They'd told him, when he'd asked after the visit to Newgrange, that the subject had never come up because they thought after thousands of years of reincarnating that he knew and it was a non-issue. It wasn't really an issue, but now, with the plots that were clearly swirling around them that he hadn't figured out yet, having his fragile Bella stand out in such a manner mattered.

He'd not asked about it in the time he'd fluttered around her mind in her lifetime, because he'd had zero contact with his family for the duration. They had no power, no direct influence in the land of Thunderbird, Whale, and Coyote, and so he'd put them out of his mind until he could return and stay in Ireland.

_Even immortals learn new things_, he mused.

"Edward?" Her quiet voice reminded him that he'd been lost in his own thoughts too long.

He moved his hand from her cheek and laced their fingers together before he lowered their hands to her side. "I don't know, really, how to explain what I mean. It is new to me. But you almost...well, glow isn't the right word, but it's the best I have the moment. Your whole body fairly exudes magic, otherworldly-ness, even though you are human and mortal." He felt her stiffen, and he hurried to try to calm her fears.

"Boann and Brigid told me that when I am born as human, I do the same thing. I didn't know-I couldn't tell when I was human, and it was a non-issue when we were both returned as Aengus and Caér, and we've never been separated in such a way before. I think," he paused, because he was still processing ideas himself, "my personal thought on this is that our souls, our spirits are powerful and immortal in ways that the souls and spirits of humans are not. They are created for immortality, and they are almost, I don't know, too much for a mortal body. So the "extra" appears as this magic seepage that clings to the body. I don't know a better way to explain it. I only just learned myself."

Edward squeezed her close and kissed her lightly along her neck, hoping to keep her calm. He imaged her brain was struggling with all this information. And Bella never liked being set apart, different, even as she had been separate from so many in her younger years.

"This is nuts, Edward."

"You've accepted everything else so easily; this is nuts?" He couldn't suppress the chuckle, and was rewarded by her punching his left thigh.

"Stop that!" She scolded. "No laughing at me."

He stopped. "No laughing," he agreed solemnly.

She huffed. "Good." His heart drew in a deep breath. "So...I'm seeping, is that the word you used? Is this dangerous? Because I don't want -"

"'Seepage' was a bad word," he hurried to admit. "Language is so imprecise sometimes, and English has had no reason to create a word for what this is. I assure you, you aren't," he barely suppressed the chuckle this time, "leaking, or anything like that. You know how in moonlight, very pale surfaces sometimes have a soft reflective glow?"

He felt her nod.

"Visually, it looks almost like that. There is a physical sort of feel to it, too, that I truly don't know how to explain. But you feel a bit..._more_ than other humans when I touch you. Brigid and mother confirm this. It's a completely different look and feel than the alliance mark."

"And you haven't mentioned this to me, why?"

He heard a hint of annoyance in her voice and grinned to himself. She really was glorious when she was angry, and was absolutely adorable when irritated.

"I didn't think it was worth mentioning." He shrugged.

It was, apparently, the wrong answer.

She whipped around, moving from snuggly tucked against his chest to kneeling between his legs and poking him in the chest faster than he thought she could move. "Worth mentioning? Really? I FREAKING GLOW and it's not worth mentioning? So all those creatures and beings and deities and what not in the passage at Newgrange with us, they all saw me with this body-sized halo, and you didn't think to mention it? No freaking wonder I felt like I was being stared at! I would've stared at me, too!"

His heart sat back on her heels and glared at him. "You didn't answer my other question. Why does this whole allegiance mark bother me so much? I keep thinking of cattle brands."

"Caér has—had?—no, has, a problem with our people creating alliances with mortals. Specifically, with such alliances involving even uninformed members of the ally family. She's—you've–been raging against it for what feels like forever. And that's one of the reasons I have no such alliance. It stopped being worth the tirades and nagging."

Bella smiled smugly at him. "I think I like Caér."

"You _are_ Caér. Of course you like her."

"If you'd told me she was all for that alliance crap, I wouldn't have liked her so much."

"If Caér-_you_-" he emphasized the word, "didn't feel strongly about it, I doubt you-Bella would, either. So you'd still like her."

"People don't always like themselves, Edward." He had to concentrate very, very hard to keep a straight face and not smile hugely at how beautiful her face was, flushed with irritation, or how the brown of her eyes grew deeper and more seductive as she glared. He knew she wouldn't appreciate how un-intimidating he found her.

"This is true," he could keep a straight face, he could. She did have a point, after all. "But that very powerful spirit residing in your body has had a huge influence on you, my heart. You are unique and beautiful and special as you, as Bella. Isabella Swan is not a carbon copy of Caér Ibormeith, daughter of Ethal Anbúail. That said, don't underestimate the power of Caér's influence on Bella."

"So," she said slowly, with a hint of a smile, "when I shed this mortal coil and am Caér again, not Caér-stuck-in-Bella's-body, do you think my life as Isabella Swan will have any lasting effects?"

Edward nodded. It was clear to him that that lifetime of Bella's would not only affect him-he was already changed by their thirty-year separation-but would alter Caér's perspective, too. "I do indeed, my dearest swan. I do indeed."

She looked at him thoughtfully, then stood up. She offered her hand to him. "Come on. I'm tired of mythology and magic for today. I want food."

He accepted her hand and allowed himself to be pulled up. On cue, their stomachs rumbled. "Food sounds like a brilliant plan. You can ask me more questions as you have them." He pulled her into a hug and led her down to the kitchen.

"Grilled cheese sandwiches?" He asked, already knowing she wouldn't turn it down.

"That sounds heavenly."

xxx-xx-xxx

"I have to call Alice."

"My heart, it's not yet the new year there." His eyes were lazily blinking, the alcohol making him feel warm and comfortable and a little sleepy.

"But it's, um, 11:50 here. And I want to call her. Say HAPPY NEW YEAR! Loud, in her ear." Her warm brown eyes were glassy. "And then I want to kish, kiss you."

Edward shrugged. "Ok. Call Alice."

"Your eyes are swirly," she informed him, leaning over him where he lay sprawled on the couch, and staring at his face.

"Swirly?"

"Schwiiirly," she confirmed.

"Swirly how?" She was the most adorable, exquisite creature he'd ever seen. Ever. In eons. And she had the nicest ass in Ireland. This he knew with certainty. Why else, he thought to himself, would his hands be so magnetically attracted to it? He was Aengus Mac Óg. He only had the best.

His wife, his mate, his heart was most definitely the best.

She was currently opening up her cell phone and holding it closer than usual to her face, peering at the keypad. With a look of triumph that made him want to leap up and kiss her, she pushed two buttons and brought the phone up to her ear.

Her cousin must have answered, because Bella's face lit up.

"Alish!" She cried. "Almost new year here! HAPPY NEW YEAR!" She bellowed it, and Edward cringed at the volume.

How could someone so small generate so much noise?

"Yesh Ali. Wine. Mmmhmm. Bunches. Ok." She paused, and seemed expectant. "Happy New Year Jazzy! What? Close enough. Almost next year here. Ok." Another pause. She turned and winked at him. "Yesh. Hi Auntie Esme!" Bella stumbled and crashed in sofa, causing the cushion he was on to bounce a small bit.

He twisted around so his head was on her lap, and he let his purr-like rumble of contentment escape his chest when she began running her fingers lazily through his hair, to the delight of his beautiful Bella. He loved that habit of hers: there was nothing like Bella's hands in his hair. He arched his neck and pushed his head into her hand like a cat. "Love this," he breathed.

"Love you," she whispered back, her voice low so that it couldn't be heard on the phone.

She turned her attention to whomever it was she was talking to in Forks. "Edward's purring," she informed the phone happily. "Edward can, Uncle Carlisle. Silly. I know what purrs sound like. He's purring." She huffed. "Mom there? Ok." His Bella sighed happily, then: "MOMMY! HAPPY NEW YEAR!"

Again, he cringed from the volume.

"Yesh, yes. Wine. Lots. Um, red. Dunno." She peered at the table, where the empty bottles sat. "Pinot noir, Merlot, and...I think Shiraz. Uh-huh. Yummy. Ok. Hi Daddy! No, not tipsy. Drunk. Lots of wine. Yeah. Ok. Hi everyone on speaker phone! Lemme do that too. Eddie can say hi."

"Eddie?" He questioned disbelievingly. He poked her in the rib, eliciting a giggle, as she examined her phone, then pressed something, and there was the echo of people and background noises in the room. "Hello family!" He said happily.

"Hi Edward!" He recognized Alice's voice, and he thought he heard all the others, too.

He looked over at the stately old grandfather clock in the dining room and saw that they were less than a minute from midnight. He pointed to it, getting Bella's attention. Her eyes grew comically large.

"Ok family," she chirped into the phone, "time for next year here! Need go so I can kish Edward!"

There was a chorus of "bye!" and "goodnight" and "love you!" And he and Bella both said their goodbyes and hung up seconds before twelve.

Edward sat up and pulled his heart into his lap, settling her there so they could take full advantage of one another when the time came. When the second hand struck midnight, Bella threw her arms around his neck and kissed him sloppily. He laughed. His heart was past drunk and closer to three sheets to the wind; the two of them had split four bottles of wine and she had recently informed him that her lips and tongue were numb, her balance impaired, and everything "absolutely fantastic!"

"Thank you," she slurred against the scratchy stubble along his jaw.

"Welcome," he answered back quietly, his words nearly as mangled as hers, thanks to the wine. "What are you thanking me for?"

"You. Thish. Us. For waiting." She paused and tried to focus through the wine haze. When she began again, she spoked very slowly and carefully. "For loving me. For always being there in my head. I didn't know you were, you were real. But you were there." She licked his neck. "Thank you for making nice with Jasper for me. For making our housh a home. For feeling up my butt the way you are right now. Unngh."

He chuckled. Whenever they were alone that week, he had found excuses to brush against her rear, palm it, tickle it, squeeze, pinch, bite—it didn't matter. From what he could tell, it amused her and turned her on and he knew she was going to absolutely melt if he kept this up.

He kept it up.

She melted.

They spent the first several hours of the new year worshiping each other, showing through deed as well as word how grateful they were to have this time together. She whispered to him, telling him what he meant to her, and the extent of her exuberance at this new beginning with him. She fell asleep in his favorite position: her legs tangled with his, laying on him as though he were her own personal mattress. Her head on his chest, her long hair spread out crazily over her back, across his arms and neck, one of his hands was gently toying with her hair, the other resting on the small of her back, holding her to him.

The sun rose on January first, and the sunbeams found Edward and Bella, Aengus and Cáer, wrapped in soft flannel sheets, breathing in sync and blissfully unaware of the world outside of their home.

xxx-xx-xxx

The laundry piled up, and the washing machine went unused.

_Stubborn_, Bella thought, both at herself and at Edward. She assumed he had clothes to wear because he was a male version of Sam from "Bewitched" and Jeannie from "I Dream of Jeannie" and could just wiggle his nose or blink and nod his head to supply himself with clothing. The dirty cheater. She caught a glimpse of him walking from room to room and sighed to herself. Not dirty. Unbelievably hot, and after their shower that morning, undeniably clean. But still a cheater.

She had begun making very very good friends with the proprietor (proprietress?) of a small clothing store in town by buying her clothes from that lovely woman. It was a complete waste of money, but she certainly wasn't going to give in first. Especially not now that she knew how easy it would be for him to actually wash the clothes.

She glowered at the disturbingly big pile of worn, unwashed clothes on the other side of the room and jotted down notes as she talked with Rosalie.

"...don't forget that February is just a week a way, and you have that interview with _Romance Writers Report_ set up for the fourth."

Bella gaped at the calendar on her desk.

"Really?" She asked of her sister-in-law, who had been lecturing her on a timetable for the novel, her voice projecting via speakphone into the open space of Bella's office.

"Really," Rose confirmed.

"February first is next week, really?" She was completely flummoxed. Could it already be February? In comparison to November and December, January had been out-right boring. The days had bled together as she and Edward settled into a routine.

After breakfast, they usually parted ways. Bella spent the early parts of the day working on the novel while Edward traveled down to Dublin. When she'd asked him about what he did there all day, he'd grinned at her and simply answered "Managing my earthly assets. I'm a businessman, after all."

"A businessman?" She'd queried.

"Indeed. It is ridiculously easy to forge diplomas and recommendations with magic. I'm well on my way to making a name for myself."

She'd rolled her eyes. "You've been doing this for what, a month now?"

"As I said, well on my way!" He'd changed the subject by throwing her over his shoulder and tossing her on their bed, which they'd made great use of.

And so the days had passed.

Not that she was complaining; a month of peace and no mythological beings, no drama, no ripples interrupting the smooth surface of her life was a welcome month. It was just hard to believe.

And like that, she began to wonder when the other shoe would drop.

She was startled out of her thoughts by Rosalie's ear-piercing whistle. "Bella Swan! Stop daydreaming!"

"Sorry Rose," she answered sheepishly, a little embarrassed at being caught even over the phone. "What were you saying?"

An hour and a thorough discussion on the novel, timetable, Emmett, Edward, the family, making friends that weren't Edward ("real friends, Bella. Friends outside of the family") and having Edward send Emmett some good whiskey, Bella hung up the phone and slumped in her chair, exhausted.

Bella roused herself from the chair when her stomach loudly demanded sustenance. A quick glance at the clock told her it was just after her normal lunch break. She felt her face scrunch up as she tried to remember when she'd had her breakfast of jam on toast. It'd been hours and hours ago. No wonder her stomach was being so vocal.

She shoved her feet into the knitted slippers Aunt Esme had sent as one of her Christmas gifts and made her way to the kitchen.

Where Edward was standing at the stove, and her nose told her he was sautéing onions. She walked closer and saw mushrooms in the pan, too. She also noticed that to the side of the stove top he had a small stack of sliced meat. Her stomach rumbled in anticipation. Whatever it was he was making, it had tasty potential. She reached his side and looked up at him quizzically.

"I wanted Philly cheese steaks," he said with a grin. "I had the handsome young Patrick slice up the steak while I was in town."

She snorted. Patrick was neither young nor handsome. He was a short, stout, heavy-set man who was balding and had mottled red skin and a big nose. He reminded her of Vizzini from _The Princess Bride_, but uglier and much, much kinder. Patrick was their favorite person to visit.

Edward told her he had a little bit of that "other" glow about him, like she did, but not as strong. He thought perhaps a less powerful immortal had been cycled into a human life as punishment. She chose to think he'd chosen a mortal life for an altruistic reason. She liked him too much to want to think of him being punished.

She took in the collection of foods on the counter and pointed at the provolone and the French bread. "That's hardly authentic Philly cheese steak ingredients, Edward."

"You're saying provolone isn't good?"

"I'm saying that as tasty as provolone may be, when I was in Philly, they used Cheez Whiz. And what's with the French bread?"

"Cheez Whiz is frightening. Your little mortal body is fragile enough. I won't pollute it with processed 'cheese' stuff. And the French bread was the only bread that looked like it would stand up to the greasy goodness of fried onions, mushrooms, and steak."

"Couldn't find Cheez Whiz, could you?"

"No."

"Or Italian rolls."

"No."

"So really, these are 'we-don't-live-in-Philly-cheese steak sandwiches.'"

"If you want to get technical."

"Maybe I do."

"Just for the record, some places in Philly do use provolone, and not fake processed cheese product that comes in a jar."

She smiled up at him, enjoying how he seemed to be struggling between being defensive about the cheese and outright laughing at her. "Do you want me to slice up the cheese so that it's ready to melt on the meat?"

He sighed and leaned down to kiss the top of her head. "That would be helpful, my heart. Considerably more helpful than criticizing my shopping for ingredients."

Bella laid her head on his shoulder for a moment. "I was just pointing out the authenticity issues." She stepped away and began slicing up the cheese.

She watched him shake his head and heard him mumble, just loud enough for her to hear, "stubborn."

Before she could stop it, a choked laugh escaped from her. "Hi Pot! I'm Kettle! Nice to meet you!"

Edward smirked at her, his swirling green eyes sucking her in. "I've noticed," he began, with repressed laughter saturating his voice, "that neither your kettle nor your pots are black. As a matter of fact," he gestured at the cobalt blue tea kettle sitting on the back burner of the stove top, "your kettle is blue and your pots," another gesture toward the cookware hanging from the wrought iron pot rack over the island. "Your pots are stainless steel."

"Who is being technical now?" Her lips twitched. She wouldn't laugh.

And then she was distracted by Edward's hands and arms. Specifically, the muscles rippling under his skin as he made their lunch.

Edward had pushed the sautéed onions and mushrooms onto a plate, and was now frying the thinly sliced and chopped rib-eye, adding the cheese she'd sliced just as the meat was getting close to perfect, so that the cheese would melt a little.

How could anyone have such perfect hands? It just wasn't fair. They were muscular, but not thick and hammer-like the way her brother's were. His fingers were long and strong and perfectly portioned to his palm. As he layered the ingredients onto the cut-open French bread, making sure plenty of grease made it onto each sandwich, she watched the muscles of his forearm ripple.

If she were the swooning type, she would have swooned. Ye gods she loved his arms.

And his hands. And his shoulders, she noted as her gaze traveled up his arm toward his face. He had a perfectly sculpted neck with tendons that just begged to be bitten, an Adam's apple that demanded she suck on it, and, as her stare reached his face, succulent lips. She needed to kiss those lips.

His lips moved and broker her reverie.

"My heart, if you promise to eat your lunch, I promise to make good on the appraisal you've just been giving me."

She stepped into him, brought her arms up over his shoulders and laced her fingers behind his neck. She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him, and he obliged her by ducking his head to meet her lips. The now familiar flow of electricity coursed through her and she poured all of her love, devotion, admiration, and lust into it. He responded in kind, putting his hands low on her back, pulling her body firmly against his own.

Eventually, their kiss slowed, and they relaxed.

"Thank you," she breathed onto the skin of his chin as they rested their heads together.

"Anytime, _a ghrá_." He separated from her. "Now, we should eat our sandwiches before they get cold. Come on." He picked up their plates and walked over to the small table in the kitchen.

About halfway through her ridiculously tasty sandwich, Bella looked up at Edward with wide eyes. "Vampires," she said.

She saw his lips twitch, and he cocked his head to the side in question. "Vampires?"

"Vampires. Mummies. And-"

"The Holy Ghost? Are those the things that terrify you the most?"

"Don't distract me with Jimmy Buffett. I was asking about vampires."

He smirked. "And mummies. Don't pretend you didn't have that song swirling in your head the second you said 'vampires.'"

"Maybe I did. Maybe I didn't. That's not the point."

He stared at her seriously. "Do you know," he asked, "how many times you listened to that CD when you were in high school? I counted. Not only did I listen to it every single time you did, I also heard the song snippets in your head when you sang them to yourself." He let his head hang back, and he looked at the ceiling. "If I never hear Jimmy Buffett's music again, it'll be too soon."

Bella gasped. "Are you insulting _Jimmy Buffett_? And I'd guess I listened to that CD a thousand times or so." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Be careful how you answer that question, Edward."

"One thousand, five hundred and sixty-eight times. That means, Bella, that I had to hear him sing about half-baked people more than once a day. Not to mention all the times I heard it in your head. And you give me grief for enjoying the greatness that is eighties pop." He brought his head back up to look at her. "So if my judgment is clouded because I like listening to Boy George from time to time, your judgment is positively opaque with your obsession with Jimmy."

He was smiling widely at her now, field-green eyes churning merrily, dimples taunting her, perfect features beaming out across the table. What had she been asking?

Then his smile slipped a little, and she recognized it for the smug smile that it was.

Right.

"Vampires. Mummies, werewolves. I can't believe I haven't asked already. Are they real, too? I mean, if chupacabras are, then I would assume those three are, too, but I want to know. And don't knock Jimmy, mister. If you aren't nice I'll play "Pencil-Thin Mustache" on repeat all afternoon." Feeling like indulging her inner child, she stuck her tongue out at him.

He sighed in defeat. "How is it that you get distracted by my arms when I cook, but when I turn my charm full on you, you stick to your questions and refuse to be distracted? Stubborn, beautiful, strange girl o'mine, what shall I do with you?"

"I can think of more than a few things you can do with me. But not until you answer my question." She smiled victoriously at him, feeling the triumph of an impending win.

"Ok! Just don't put that damn song on repeat." He shuddered. "Yes, all three exist. Vampires and werewolves are a fair bit different than what you read about in stories or see in the movies and television. And you can see mummies for yourself at the British Museum. We should go. You'd love the history there."

"Edward!"

He got up and walked around to table until he was right next to her. He bent over so that his lips tickled the shell of her ear. "Yes, my heart?"

She stuttered. "The museum? You mean um," she couldn't concentrate with him nipping at her ear the way he was, with his warm breath tickling the skin of her neck.

"I mean," he said quietly, "no vengeful mummies running around like in the movies." He moved his attentions to the soft skin just behind and below her ear, and Bella was grateful she was already sitting. Had she been standing, her knees would've buckled.

Forgetting all about lunch, Jimmy Buffett, or mythological questions, she twisted her body so that she could capture his lips in a kiss.

Right as Edward grasped her elbows to tug her up and out of the chair, her phone rang. They ignored it, and moments later, Bella heard the chime that indicated she had a voice mail.

His fingers whispered against the sensitive skin of her ribs when it rang again. And again.

"Fuck," she hissed in irritation.

She pulled the phone out of her pocket to turn it off and saw Alice's name on the ID. Suddenly worried about her parents, she flipped the phone open hurriedly. "Alice? Is everything ok? Why didn't you just let me call back? What's going on?"

"Bella! I couldn't wait to tell you! Mom, Aunt Renee and I are coming to visit!"

Her jaw dropped open. "When?"

"Next month! It's going to be so much fun, us girls! I can't wait-"

Bella lost track of Alice's voice when she felt the air inside of the house feel like it was being compressed. Both she and Edward snapped their heads up at attention. "Alice," she spoke into the phone, "hold on for a moment, ok?"

She held the phone against her chest so that Alice wouldn't hear her. "Edward, what was that?"

Edward's hand gently cupped the back of her head, and she felt his thumb caressing her hair. "Something," his voice was grim, "is trying to breach the wards. Hold on." He jogged over to the double doors that lead to the back patio and walked out into the cold afternoon air.

Bringing the phone back to her ear, she spoke quietly. "Alice? Can I call you back later? I want to give you my full attention, but it looks like we have some guests dropping in."

"You have friends! It's about time!" Alice's excited voice shrieked through the phone. "Of course you can call back! We'll talk all about the trip! Love ya! Bye!"

"Bye Alice. Talk with you soon." Bella pressed the 'end' button and closed the phone. Her eyes were locked on her Edward, staring at him through the glass. Abruptly, Brigid was there in front of him, and the two began talking animatedly, Edward with angry gestures and Brigid fairly radiating calmness. She realized she couldn't hear what they were saying, so she got up and walked over to the doors.

"-Tell him to come talk to me, and talk to me soon, sister. I won't have this. Caér is too fragile, too vulnerable, as Bella!"

Brigid was harder to hear, because she was talking quietly and calmly, but Bella caught some of it as she put her hand on the door knob to open it and join them. "I'll send him straight to you once I find him, Aengus. I don't know what this was. I think, mostly, it was just a test of the wards, not an attack."

"Edward?" Bella stepped out onto the patio and immediately wrapped her arms around herself, shivering at the icy January air.

He gathered her into him, and warmed her with his own heat. "Life is going to become ever so much more interesting in the near future, my heart. I'm sorry you must get involved with the family drama."


	9. Chapter 9

Edward tilted his head down to better look at Bella. "You felt the wards being attacked." He glanced up at his sister. "Fine, Brigid. Tested." He returned his attention to his heart. "Mortals shouldn't be able to feel such things, _a ghrá_."

This bothered him more than he wanted to admit. Bella was, despite of that soft glow about her, mortal. Human. The wards his sister had put on their home were firmly products of magic, of the Otherworld. Bella shouldn't be able to sense them at all, and certainly not feel when they were being breached or tested.

He was beginning to understand that he perhaps didn't know as much as he liked to think—not that he'd ever admit that with a member of his family, even the good Brigid, nearby—and it terrified him to think what that lack of knowledge could cost him.

The beautiful, delicate brunette in his arms smiled and shrugged at him. "I felt it when the wards went up, too. Your mother commented then that most mortals wouldn't notice such a thing, but she didn't look worried the way you do." Bella's face crinkled up in confusion. "What's wrong, Edward?"

What was wrong? His heart was so susceptible to attack as a human. They always took a risk by allowing themselves to be born into human, mortal lives where they lost their powers and separated from the Otherworld for the short decades of a human life, but they usually restricted their romps as mortals to those times when they didn't feel threatened. Had they misjudged thirty years ago, when they planned to spend time in this realm to experience life as a human in the maze of technology they've invented over the century?

For a brief moment, he allowed himself a bit of nostalgia for the days when men and fey alike killed each other with spears and knives carved from the living stone of the island.

"You're freezing. We should move inside." He gave her a brief, tight squeeze, then turned her around to face the patio doors. He gently guided her inside, and held the door open for Brigid, who'd followed them. Once his sister breezed past him, he walked in and went straight to the stove in the kitchen, filling the kettle with water and placing it on the burner.

"Tea?" He asked the two women.

They nodded, and he pulled out Bella's favorite tea leaves and a diffuser ball, then turned to his sister. "Any preference, Brigid? Bella has about fifty different flavors to choose from." He grinned when his heart stuck her tongue out at him.

"I don't have that many," she griped.

He nearly snorted. Instead, he opened the cabinet, which was stuffed with boxes and tins of teas of varying quality and flavors. "You're right," he mocked, "it's probably closer to a hundred different types."

He was rewarded with light smack on the shoulder and a "you'll pay for that!"

Edward winked at her and put on a mask of happiness for the moment. No reason to ruin a light-hearted moment with surrounding worries.

"Chamomile?" He asked Brigid.

She smiled and nodded.

"So," Bella started. "You're worried."

Perhaps he was the only one who wanted to hold onto the levity. Or, he mused, maybe she just wanted to know what was going on. He imagined she was curious and worried, just as he was.

He nodded at her statement. "What I don't know worries me. I don't know why you can sense the wards. I don't know who is testing them. I don't know why they are being tested. My heart, I don't like not knowing. Lack of knowledge might get you killed." Edward felt the frown pulling the corner of his lips down. They were finally together. All he wanted was the happily ever after that the characters in Bella's novels got to experience.

He turned toward his sister. "She can sense the wards. Did you make that so?"

Brigid shook her head. "No. But brother, you know as well as I that magic is sometimes its own entity. There are often, if not always, corollary happenings that go along with the action we intend. Also, her ability to sense the wards may be completely unrelated." She turned her attention to the lone mortal in the room. "Bella, are there members of your family that have Gifts?"

Bella tilted her head, considering. "My cousin Alice has what she calls Feelings. It's not quite precognition or clairvoyance, but she's uncannily accurate. She sometimes just...has a feeling about a situation, decision, or person." Bella shrugged. "Whenever I've gone against her Feelings I've regretted it."

"How is Alice related to you?"

"Our mothers are sisters."

Brigid looked thoughtful. "Any other family members?"

"Grandma Swan had weather sense. She was more reliable than the Farmer's Almanac." Bella paused. "She was my dad's mother. She told Dad stories, too, of her mother being able to read people. Mom and Aunt Esme can communicate almost without words—like twinspeak, though they aren't twins. That's all I can think of, though."

"Aengus, Bella's perception of the wards may just be a manifestation of power that other members of her family have exhibited. It is not unlike a predilection for clairvoyance or weather sense that the women in her family experience." Swirling green eyes met swirling green eyes.

Edward gave in first. "Alright. So it is unrelated to anything going on, just a result of two families with occasional special abilities."

The kettle whistled, and Edward prepared their tea.

"What did you feel when the wards were being tested, _a ghr__á_?" He had simply felt the tension of the air surrounding their home change and flex, and he wondered if Bella perceived it in the same manner.

"The air condensed." She accepted the offered steaming mug of tea and blew on it.

"Condensed?" He and Brigid spoke in sync.

"Condensed. It grew heavier."

Edward felt his heart drop. If the way she felt the wards being tested meant that to her the air actually condensed, then what would she feel, what would happen if something more serious happened to them?

He exchanged glances with his sister, who looked as surprised as he felt.

"Did you have trouble breathing at all?" He asked.

A shrug was his answer. "Not that I noticed. Though I guess if it grew to feel heavier I might have. You know how you have trouble pulling in air when you're completely winded from running for something? It felt almost like the beginning of that."

"I'm worried." Edward frowned. "If you felt that inkling of trouble breathing when the wards were just being tested, then what happens when true effort is put into breaching them?"

She was frustratingly nonchalant about potential injury or damage to herself. His beautiful and fragile love shrugged her shoulders again. "Well hopefully we won't find out. And maybe that's as bad as it gets."

Edward hoped, really, really hoped that the look he was giving her made her realize how unlikely that was.

Bella blinked back at him in apparent innocence. He snorted internally. Innocent. Right.

He caressed her cheek. "Do you understand how fragile and vulnerable you are as a mortal, Bella?"

"More fragile than you," she answered with a wry expression.

Nodding in agreement, he continued, "And I am less powerful like this than I would be naturally. You are quite exposed right now, love."

"Well then, I'll just stick close to you. What a sacrifice!" She put the back of her wrist dramatically to her forehead.

He rolled his eyes. "Like this, as a mortal, Cáer-as-Bella, you are easier to capture, and then keep."

"Keep?" Her eyebrow arched.

He shifted his weight, uncomfortable with the thought. "Keep. As it stands right now, if you were to die, then your—Cáer's—spirit would spin back out to the Otherworld and would again be as you before this incarnation as Isabella Swan."

"So if I die, no big deal," she shrugged.

How could she feel so casually about her death? He opened his mouth to reply, but Brigid beat him to it.

"What Aengus trying to tell you, Cáer, is that if you were to die while in the possession of any Tuatha, or any deity, your spirit could be intercepted as it traveled from this body to the Otherworld. Intercepted and easily caught. There is a certain amount of delay between the time your mortal body meets its end and your spirit is wholly readjusted to your natural state of being." Brigid's voice was disinterested, almost clinical, but he could tell from the flash in her green eyes that his sister was nearly as disturbed by the idea of Cáer being trapped as he was.

"So dying as Bella, which is not something I encourage, by the way, is indeed a _big deal,_ my heart." Edward tried to keep the worry from his face, not wanting to show how bothered he was. "And you must not forget your family here. Do you want Renee and Charlie to have to bury their only daughter, Emmett to lose his sister, Alice say good bye to her cousin/sister? There are a good many people involved in your life." He closed his eyes briefly. "Don't take this life so lightly. It truly is precious." He smiled, but he knew it was weak.

She looked stricken when he mentioned her family, and he realized she had managed to not think of them when she made her comment. "I'd be used as leverage." Bella looked thoughtful, her beautiful brown eyes glazing over as she retreated into her head to process this information.

Brigid and Edward both nodded. He hated to even think about someone else being near her when Bella passed from this life, passed after the end of a long and peaceful lifetime. Not because some bastard in a power struggle wanted to get to Aengus Mac Óg.

"What do you mean, Brigid, there is a delay in the spirit, that it can be 'intercepted?'" Bella's voice stopped his internal musings. He could see the gears in her head turning, making sense of everything she was being told.

"There's," he answered for his sister, "a short time, the span of a handful of breaths, that it takes for the spirit to transition from the mortal plane to the Otherworld. Usually this is inconsequential—in the times we've allowed ourselves to incarnate as humans we haven't had a problem with this brief time of vulnerability—however, given the situation now, it is a source of concern. If one of our brethren or someone else of power were right there with you when you died, they could capture your spirit."

"So, I'm a target now just because I'm a fragile human? Wouldn't Cáer be easy to capture, compared to you, anyway, if they want to get to you? She—I?—aren't as powerful as you two, is she? Me? Whatever. You know what I mean. Isn't she-me easier to kidnap or trap than you are anyway?" She took a deep breath, and Edward took the pause as an opportunity to sit down and pull her into his lap. He felt better when they were touching, and the more of her he had contact with, the greater his sense of contentment.

He badly wanted to scoop her up and hide her away until he take care of those who would threaten her safety.

It was becoming increasingly obvious to him that this was more than someone simply irritating him upon his return home. The testing of the wards tonight had had a malicious feel to it; nothing obvious to prove this inkling of his, but his intuition was rarely wrong. If it were his brothers or friends trying to make him uncomfortable or make him squirm, that edge of malice he felt wouldn't have been present.

Brigid answered. It seems they were going to just take turns responding to Bella's questions. "You are correct. Cáer doesn't have the full power of the Tuatha. She's a product of a mixed union, her father a Tuatha, her mother one of the 'lesser' immortals of the Otherworld. Although Cáer lacks the total power of a full-blooded deity, she is nonetheless a powerful being in her own right; weaker than us, but far stronger than any mortal. In any event, not so easy to capture or injure." Brigid sighed and leaned over to place her hand on Bella's. "And, if you were still Cáer, Aengus would also be in his natural state, and he is a formidable force. Funneling his power and energy into a human avatar, as he is now, to be with you, reduces his power. You are doubly exposed, doubly open to those who intend harm."

Bella arranged herself so that she could face both of them. "I feel like I need a brain break. It's not every night I learn that I'm the weak link and the means by which some unknown bad guy can get to the love of my life. I either need a nap or a thought-free movie that requires no effort to watch."

Brigid smiled. "I'll leave you two alone. I'll check in with you later, brother. Bella." She nodded her goodbye and left.

She snuggled into his embrace, and Edward wrapped himself as wholly around her as he could, cocooning her in his warmth and strength.

xx-xx-xx

"Are you ready for the invasion?"

Edward laughed at her question. "Invasion?"

"You know that's what it will be. The four Swan-Cullen women versus you. You won't have a moment of peace while they're here."

"I don't have a moment of peace now, with just you."

"Noticed that, did you? Multiply that by, oh, Mom counts as a small army, so ten thousand."

"I did spend thirty years around you ladies, in your head. I have some idea of the damage you all can do." He stuck his tongue out at her, causing her to giggle.

"You might have some idea, but darling o'mine, you've not been on the receiving end before. We spared you at Thanksgiving. Mom and Aunt Esme were afraid they'd run off the only man I've ever brought home. We're living together, now. I'm staying on a different continent for you. You're so very screwed."

She reached out and pinched his side. "Oh, and! I should mention, in case you missed it, my mother has a fondness for rear ends."

He cocked his head to the side and gave her a questioning look. He of course had noticed Renee's penchant for pinching Charlie's back end, and her giggling pinching of Carlisle and Jasper's when she was drunk at family functions, but he didn't quite understand—oh. "So you're saying she reigned herself in at Thanksgiving?"

"Oh yes, and while you boys were out drinking—thank you again for that—she complimented me on my taste in derrières. Specifically, yours. She doesn't require alcohol. Just so you know." She reached out and grabbed a handful of his ass. "I love this."

He did, too. "My heart," he growled, "if you didn't need to leave in a few minutes to pick up your lovely little invasion force, I'd take advantage of you groping me."

"Hold that thought for later. The girls have to sleep at some point. I plan on more groping then."

Her enchanting eyes sparkled up at him, and he bent his head to nibble on her earlobe and lightly bite her neck. "So delicious," he whispered, "so soft."

Bella hummed under his lips. "They can wait at the airport for an hour or so."

Edward laughed and licked her neck along the vein thrumming under the skin. "I'd rather not have my favorite person in existence damaged, and they would surely do damage if you made them wait just so we could again test the strength of the table." He glanced at the small brass and wood clock on the fireplace mantle. "Time to go, my beautiful girl."

"I wish you'd come with me to pick them up."

Edward kissed the top of her head. "With me in the car, there won't be enough room for all of you, plus Alice and Esme's luggage. You'll barely fit as it is." He chuckled at the thought of the four women plus two weeks worth of luggage being crammed into the small car. "Besides, while you're picking up your lovely relatives, I'll make lunch and you ladies will come home to a nice home cooked meal."

Bella grinned up at him, and he traced her eyebrow with his finger. "I do love a good house husband," she said.

He gasped in pretended offense. "House husband! Is that all you keep me around for?"

"It is indeed, it is indeed. You have such spectacular laundry skills. Why else would I keep you around?"

A deep laugh was the only reply he could give. That morning he'd finally caved into her stubbornness, and with much flair and more than a little grumbling for her entertainment he'd begun working on the frighteningly large mound of laundry in their room. He'd even sorted the clothes and loaded the washing machine correctly. Truly, he'd underestimated her willingness to prove him wrong and get her way.

When he realized that she was going to leave the clothes there even with her family visiting, he knew he'd lost. Having her mother and Esme see the mess was something he did not want. He knew that it would require explanation, the story would come out, and he'd have four women against him instead of one. If there was one thing he'd learned in his long life, it was that having a family of women aligned against you was very bad news. He hadn't thought it possible, but he loved his beautiful, stubborn swan all the more for her determination. There was a small part of his mind that wondered if perhaps Bella hadn't orchestrated her relatives' visit to push him into this corner; it was certainly something Cáer would've done.

"I am certainly happy that you keep me around. If you need a house husband, or a mate capable of keeping house, then that is what I will be." He nipped at her ear. "Go pick up the girls."

After he sent her off for the drive to the airport in Dublin, he turned his attentions to living up to his promise to take care of their home while she was gone.

While he stuffed a pillow into the clean pillowcase he shook his head. Here he was, many millenia old, making a bed like a common servant. Bella really was affecting him in strange ways. Cáer wouldn't have asked him to do such a mundane task, understanding that a god didn't make beds. Bella didn't care who he was. Guests were coming and he needed to help prepare their home.

The memory of the scandalized look she'd given him when he'd offered to hire a maid triggered a round of chuckles while he put the other pillows on the bed. "Edward!" She'd admonished, "A maid? Only two people live here, we're not messy, except for the laundry situation," a roll of her eyes, "and we are both perfectly capable of keeping house. You especially so." He'd been shocked at how vehement she'd been. For Bella it was a lifetime of ideas on self-sufficiency. For him it was a blink of time in a very long life, and he was used to the perks of being powerful.

"I'm not going to hire someone to clean up after me when I have no reason not to do it myself. If we both worked ungodly hours during the week, had a house full of kids, or traveled excessively, it'd be different. But right now, no. You and I are the housekeepers, my dear love god. Get used to elbow grease, detergent, and vacuums." His lips had twitched, and she'd called him on it, verbally castigating him for laughing at her. That had only served to endear her to him further. She was such a product of her time and her culture. Honestly, who turned down having hired help?

Working on preparing the guest rooms, he used the work to distract him so that he could concentrate on not worrying about her. There had been nothing of note in the three weeks since the wards had been tested that night, no attempts on the wards, no news by way of his mother or Brigid. He resolved himself to his mundane, domestic duties, and shut out the worries he had.

The dirty clothes still made an impressive pile in their room and the associated odor was enough to make him batty, so he planned on using his powers to clean it all up while she was picking up their visitors. He tried to keep his abilities to himself when they were together; making Bella uncomfortable was the last thing he wanted to do, and he was afraid that flaunting his powers would do exactly that.

An hour later all the clothes were clean and put away and he was head and shoulders deep in the pantry looking for the bag of flour he knew was in there somewhere.

He felt his mother before he heard her tinkling laugh fill the space of the kitchen. "I like the changes she brings out in you, Aengus. You have taken well to these domestic tasks."

"It is what she needs me to be right now." He smiled at the river goddess. "And wasn't it you who said I should do whatever my love said?"

"I did. Nonetheless, a pleasant surprise to see you acting on it in such a way. These mortals have come to mean a great deal to you, haven't they?" The movement of her blue-green irises told him that she was feeling contemplative. She switched to their own tongue, that which predated the coming of Gaelic. "You think of them as family, in such a short time?"

Edward nodded. "I do. I grew with them as Bella did, was in her head when Renee or Esme soothed her hurts, taught her new things, imparted nuggets of wisdom. Alice is as fierce a protectress and dedicated a being as I've seen. I never wanted yet more female relatives, but I've found them in these souls."

"And her male relatives?" Boann queried.

"Excellent examples of their species and gender. I am in debt to Emmett and Charlie for how they took care of Bella-Cáer while she was young. They and Carlisle were protectors and nurturers. When they finally pass from this plane, I will truly and honestly miss them, they are a rare breed." He looked at his mother sadly. "In truth, anyone of them could be used against me. I truly cherish them. With the women visiting, it is going to be a dangerous time here. Keeping an eye on Bella is difficult enough."

His mother's warm hand rested firmly on his arm, and her expression was stern. "I did not search over a year for her, son, did not watch you waste away for lack of the girl who haunted your dreams, did not take her into my heart to see injury come to either of you now."

He covered her hand with his own. "Thank you, Mother." His lips twitched up. "Would you like to meet the walking tornadoes of humanity? They're due back later in the afternoon."

Boann smiled. "I'll return during their visit. Of course I will meet they who have captured your loyalty in a few short decades."

xx-xx-xx

The Swan-Cullen women exploded into the house, filling it immediately with chatter and laughter and calls for a "big strapping man" to assist them with the luggage. Bella bent over double in laughs so strong they were nearly silent, and she was gasping for air when Edward stopped, just outside the front door, and took in the pile of suitcases and bags brought by her mother, aunt, and cousin. It was precious, she thought, when he realized he'd have to tote it all into the house the mundane non-magic way, with their three guests standing there.

Before heading for the tumble of Samsonite, Coach, and Hartmann, Edward scooped a delighted Renee into a hug. "Welcome to our home!" He said enthusiastically. He repeated the hug and exclamation with Esme and Alice, and then faced the luggage.

Bella bit her lip to keep the comments from coming as she watched Edward cut a glance over at Alice. "I notice, Alice, that there seem to be more Coach bags than the others. I take it those are yours?"

Her cousin huffed and crossed her arms. "What makes you think they aren't Mom's or Aunt Renee's?"

Edward grinned. "I don't see you toting Samsonite around, and besides there's only one carry-on and one regular suitcase. That has to be Renee. And Alice," he grinned as he pointed to the much-dinged grey hardshell rollerboard, "all those travel stickers just shout 'Renee' don't you think?"

She pouted a little and then grinned. "What about the Hartmann?"

"Esme all the way," he replied. "Classic. Nothing ostentatious. Good quality. And nearly as many bags as yours."

Bella laughed at her cousin's expense. "You should've seen the trunk, Edward. And the backseat. Crammed to gills, my poor car." She darted behind Edward to use him as a shield when Alice half-seriously lunged at her.

Edward shook his head and took hold of them by the ruff of the neck—or in this case, the back of the collar—and then sent the four women inside to choose their beverages of the evening while he wrangled in the bags and suitcases.

Making herself the last one in the house, Bella hung back a little with Edward, greeting him with a big sloppy kiss. "Are you going to cheat?" She asked.

"Me?" He tried to affect innocent naiveté, and Bella found herself giggling again.

"You," she confirmed. He was in a wonderfully playful mood, seeming to take the joy coming off of the four women and radiate it out himself. So much more of what she wanted to see, far better than the brooding, worried Edward she'd lived with for the past three weeks. She hoped he'd keep this levity and joy. Brooding didn't sit well on his features. He was made to be a happy deity, she thought.

Moments passed, and he shooed her into the house after the others and promised to find them when he'd finished playing bellboy. She nodded her assent, and went inside to give the other three a tour of their home. Bella started the tour in the small cellar below the house, which she and Edward were using to store a small collection of wine and where she'd taken to keeping some of the food that needed cool-not coldly refrigerated-storage. As the other three women discussed the merits of the various wines and she chatted with Esme about the benefits of a cool, dry root cellar such as this, she wondered to herself how long Edward waited before he used his magic to move the luggage in the guest rooms.

Renee and Esme exchanged a glance, and then Renee smiled at her daughter. "Edward is very observant, to have us all pegged by our luggage after meeting us once, months ago."

"I talk about you all a lot, Mom. He probably knows you as well as if he'd grown up with you."

"We're glad you're happy, dear." Esme reached over and cupped Bella's cheek gently. "He is lovely."

She grinned at the two women. "You have no idea how lovely he is, Aunt Esme. He's tailor made for me."

"I can tell that he's very special."

The bottles of wine selected, they went to the kitchen to pour themselves generous glasses and continue the tour of the comfortable white house.

"It smells delicious in here!" Esme said, sounding delighted.

Bella grinned. "Edward's been slaving away over a hot stove all day for us. I have no idea what he's made, actually. But it does smell yummy." She walked over to the stove top and pulled up the lid of the pot currently sitting over a low flame. As she was bending to put her nose close to the crack between lid and pot, Edward's hand came down and closed it.

"No peeking," he admonished, his face a mask of mock severity.

"It must be terrible if you won't let me even look at it."

Edward laughed. "Aunt Esme, domestic goddess extraordinaire, just exclaimed over how delicious it smells. My ego has been successfully inflated. There's no tramping it down now. You're too late."

"I'm guessing it was too late the day you two met," Alice chimed in. "Though I am a little surprised Bella's sharp tongue and sarcasm haven't cut you down to size. Usually that's the first thing she does to men who are interested."

With a scowl, Bella retorted, "You don't know what I had to work with. His ego is enormous. We could be together a thousand years and I would barely make a dent."

"It's one of the reasons we work well together. I need an ego the size of Eire to stand up to you." He turned his thousand-watt smile on their three visitors, winked cheekily at her, then pecked her on the forehead. "If you'll set the table, my heart, I'll serve the food."

xx-xxx-xx

Edward stiffened beside her, and she felt the loose grip he'd had on her upper arm grow more and more firm, to the point that it hurt. She looked up at him in concern, and saw only a grim expression on his face. He seemed to be staring at something.

Bella looked around their bedroom. They were sitting on their bed, propped against the headboard, and had been quietly discussing their guests, her drive back with the three women, and Renee's ecstatic reaction their house, and then his body was stiff and tense, and his conversation had halted.

She saw nothing, felt nothing amiss. She could hear Alice and Esme quietly talking in the guest room down the hall, and the soft, gentle snores Renee was now prone to filtered in from the room across from Alice and Esme's, but she could detect nothing else.

What was he looking at? And why the death grip on her arm all of a sudden? "Edward?" She pulled gently on the arm he was holding, trying to get his attention, to get him to loosen his grip.

He gave no indication that he heard her, but the hold on her arm grew even tighter, and he pulled her closer to him, so that her side was pulled firmly against him. She realized through her surprise that his weight had shifted; he was leaning forward, tensed and coiled and ready to leap up from the mattress. She had no doubt that he'd take her with him if he did.

What the hell was going on?

"Edward," she said urgently, a note of fear working its way in despite her efforts to sound calm. "Edward, you're hurting my arm. Let go, please."

His eyes never lost their focus on whatever it was he was looking at before them, but his hand relaxed infinitesimally. She felt his chest rumble before she heard any noise coming from him. She couldn't understand what he was saying, but it sounded low, almost guttural. And Edward sounded very, very angry.

He was reminding her of how he'd acted when she'd been threatened while in the Otherworld in December. Beautiful and frightening. Just as his inhuman origin showed through when he was relaxed into his joy and love of her or in a full-bellied laugh, it showed through in his anger. The tightening of his features, the sharpness of his voice, the maelstrom of green of his eyes, the aura of danger that seemed to radiate from him, all pointed to his being _more_ than other men.

She shivered slightly, glad she was not on the receiving end of that.

But what was?

She felt him relax a small amount, and then he was gently holding her by her shoulders, pushing her back far enough for him to take a complete inventory of her.

"Did I hurt you?"

He had such a look of pain and fear on his face that she immediately dismissed any ideas of telling him he had. And seeing as the throbbing in her arm was already fading to a barely noticeable level, she shook her head. "No."

He stared her down, seeming to search her face for confirmation of her words. "You're sure?"

She nodded. "I'm sure." She hesitated. "Edward, what was it? What were you looking at? Talking to? Why did you grab hold of me like that?" She reached up her hand to cup his cheek and offer what soothing she could. He still looked slightly wild, almost like a barely tamed wolf.

He leaned into her touch and turned his head to kiss her palm in their old gesture of love and affection; one of the few things that carried through, she remembered, from life to life with them. She gently rubbed his cheekbone with her thumb and he closed his eyes at the soft ministrations.

"Some news that I didn't want to hear, my love."


	10. Chapter 10

"News?" Bella asked.

"My family," he offered by way of explanation, knowing full well it was no explanation at all. He wasn't sure how she'd feel about knowing Tuatha could make themselves invisible at will, and that the only brother he trusted, Midir, had just been in the room with them. No one had just dropped in, invisible, until now; there would be no abusing that ability someplace _he_ called home. Nonetheless, he could see his heart being uncomfortable with this knowledge, should he tell her.

He'd asked Midir to help him discover who was testing the wards around the home he shared with Bella, and what the mysterious party's motivations might be. He and Brigid assumed that whatever was going on had to do with him, with using Cáer-as-Bella as his weak point. They weren't certain of that, however. What if Bella was the ultimate target? She was a powerful being in her own right; not wielding the power of a full blooded Tuatha, perhaps, but Cáer was a shape changer, and swans were a powerful symbol in the old ways.

Midir had not been able to help. Not for lack of effort, he knew. Midir was a cherished and dear member of his family, not unlike Brigid, and he knew that he'd been earnest in his investigation. Already angry at the lack of information, he'd become livid when Midir had told him of the complete lack of cooperation of their other brother, Neit, and his ultimate refusal to help them in any way.

Neit. Edward hadn't yet repaid that brother for arranging for Cáer's spirit to be reborn so far from Ireland, where he, bound to their homeland, could not be reincarnated near her. He was a firm believer in revenge being a dish best served cold; one did not rush such things. Nonetheless, he'd arranged for Neit to encounter certain...irritants. Reoccurring, seemingly random setbacks over the past three decades. The interfering god had a short temper at the best of times and Edward took a certain amount of satisfaction from knowing the other god had had no peace in recent years.

He'd been fairly certain that Neit did not know the irritants stemmed from him, but this flat refusal to help caused him to wonder. Was the refusal a form of retribution? Was he just being an ass? Did he genuinely not care? _Well_, reflected Edward, _of course he doesn't care_. This was Neit. Not the most generous of their family.

For neither the first nor the last time, Edward cursed his father's proclivity for getting women pregnant. He had entirely too many half-siblings. Some, like Brigid and Midir, were absolute gems. Indeed, Midir had acted as foster-father and raised him until The Dagda had actually acknowledged Aengus as his son. So many others who were products of The Dagda's escapades, however, were not so generous of spirit.

At one point early in their reunion he'd tried to explain his family politics to Bella, who'd summed it up with a succinct: "Your family's politics are a _bitch_." It was an incredibly accurate understatement. And it unfortunately made finding out just what was going on more difficult. It meant that almost anyone could be up to no good at any given time, and the smallest of slights was often enough to spark a fight or act of revenge.

Edward counseled himself to patience. He'd over-reacted to the dearth of information, to Neit's stonewalling. He would be patient. They would find out what was happening, and he would end any danger that threatened his heart. And he'd turn the screw ever tighter on a certain sad excuse for a sibling.

He allowed himself a long moment to look her over. Her dark brown hair was pulled back into a loose plait that was slowly undoing itself, with small sections falling out and framing her beautiful face. She had a worried expression, and he silently cursed himself for not better controlling his reaction. He hadn't even realized he'd latched onto her until she told him he was hurting her. He gave himself a mental kick for his carelessness. Edward's gaze traveled down along her neck to the hollow at the base, just visible above the neckline of the green t-shirt she'd swiped from him and now wore to sleep. Of its own volition, his hand came up to touch the soft skin there. She was so fragile, his Cáer, his Bella.

A gentle smile replaced her worried expression as he trailed his finger along the cotton covering her collarbone, tracing it out to her shoulder and down her arm. She flinched the slightest bit when his finger traveled over her bicep; he wouldn't have noticed it if he hadn't been staring so intently at her face.

"Bella?"

Her gentle smile became reassuring and she shook her head. "Nothing, Edward. You were just going tell me what news."

He stared at her thoughtfully. She was obviously trying to deflect him. Idly, his finger traced the infinity symbol along her bicep as he studied her, wondering what was going on in her head, when she flinched again. He froze.

With a frown, he tucked his finger under hem of the sleeve of her stolen shirt, and lifted. The already forming bruises on her skin horrified him. _I did that_, he thought grimly. _I hurt her. _Gently, so, so gently, he pushed her sleeve up so that he could see the entirety of her arm. Four distinct finger-shaped bruises were forming, the initial angry red already darkening into a purple where his fingertips had dug into her arm. _So fragile._ With the lightest of touches, he rotated her arm toward her body and saw the matching mark his thumb had made.

Edward struggled not to be sick. He'd hurt her."Bella," he choked out. He briefly closed his eyes against the sight of the marks he'd left on her skin.

Her small, soft hands were then on the sides of his face, holding him gently, gaining his attention, and forcing him to meet her intent look.

"Edward, you intended me no harm. I don't think you even realized you had your hand on my arm. It's ok." She stroked his cheek soothingly and against his will he found himself beginning to relax.

He shook his head. "I hurt you," his agony over the bruises infused his voice. "Bella, it scares me that I didn't realize what—who—I was holding. I was so focused on what Midir was telling me that everything else faded."

Her face wrinkled in confusion. "Midir? Your brother-slash-foster father?" He watched the gears click into place in her head. "Here!"

Edward nodded. "Here."

His heart's mouth opened and closed, and then, "Your brother was in our room. Invisible."

"Yes."

She seemed to contemplate this. "Does this happen often?"

"This is the first time," he smiled. "In your reading of our legends, do you remember how the Tuatha have the ability to become invisible?"

He watched her eyes seem to turn inward as she looked to recall the information. "Mananann made the feast of Goibniu. Because of the feast, the princes could not be seen; the high kings were immortal and did not get old." She paused, her attention still turned inward as she went back through the research she'd done the previous year. "It was Mananann who taught the Tuatha to set up residence in the sidhe after you lost to the Sons of Mile and had to move underground, to the Otherworld, right?" She looked up at him. "Why not just call them the Gaels? Isn't that what, or who, the Sons of Miles were?"

"Yes. And for most people I believe that Sons of Miles, Milesians, and Gaels are interchangeable. All refer to the same group, who won control of the surface of the island when they defeated us." Edward stifled the urge to frown. The loss to the Milesians still rankled when he thought of it. He had a great fondness for the their descendants; he'd lived among them many, many times over the millennia, had taken to their language and woven himself into their legends and so established a sort of big-brother attitude for them. Nonetheless, a loss was a loss and it was not a pleasant memory. Mananann should never have needed to create the feast of Goibniu or show them how to set up residences in the sidhe.

Bella went back to her previous train of thought. "Midir was able to come into the house? What kind of wards did Brigid set? So far Brigid, Boann, and Midir have entered with nary a blip."

"The wards are triggered partially by intent. No one, human or from the Otherworld, can enter our home without our explicit consent. If they intend harm, they'll be forcefully repelled. Also, there are three members of my family who I trust implicitly, and all three have already been in our home. Brigid, Boann, Midir. No one else from my family can just drop in at will. They'll have to knock and request entry."

Bella groaned. "Please don't tell me we've had invisible visitors in our house. They don't hang around and watch us, do they?"

"No. I wouldn't allow that. I always know when one of them is near. And believe me, they don't care about watching us putter around the house."

His heart arranged herself so that she was draped across him with her head on his chest. He brought his arms around her and chuckled as she nipped at his hand. "You know," she began, "'My family' is a terrible answer. It doesn't tell me anything. Now, I know that Midir was apparently here. Tell me what he said."

Edward nodded into her hair. He pulled her close and relayed Midir's information, or lack thereof, and spoke to her about his fury at Neit's refusal to help.

They fell into an easy conversation and before long his dear Bella drifted off in his arms and their time together ended.

He still felt queasy about the bruises he'd left on her arms, but for the sake of his sanity, he decided to refrain from mentioning it again. Mentally, though, he put it on a mental list of things he needed to make up to her later.

xx-xx-xx

Bella laughed quietly as Edward squirmed in the passenger seat. He only liked being in a car if he was the driver; Bella, he said, drove too slow and had no love for the act of driving itself. In this, Edward was in complete agreement with Rose, Alice, and the men in their family. Only Esme and Renee didn't complain when she drove.

The handsome love god sitting next to her wrenched himself around to peer into the back seat, where Esme, Renee, and Alice were sitting. "Is she always so-" he sounded as though he were struggling to find the appropriate word, "_careful_ in her driving?"

Bella snorted. Somehow he managed to sound like a petulant seventeen year-old rather than the ageless god he was or the thirty-ish man he was pretending to be. Amazing how cars and driving seemed to elicit such reactions from men of all ages.

Mentally, she scoffed. Who said that driving had to be a race? Why was calm, careful driving a bad thing? And at any rate, he knew damn well she was this kind of driver. He'd told her early on in their reunion that hanging out in the back of her mind and around her while she was learning to drive as a teen had been tantamount to torture. Charlie had gifted her with an old red Chevy truck that Emmett and their friend Jacob had worked on, and Bella was convinced her father had bribed the two of them to rig the engine so that the great red beast wouldn't go much above a stately fifty-five miles per hour. She'd never been a speed demon, and the steady pace of her old truck had suited her perfectly.

"She's always been this way," Alice answered. "She drives everything just like she had to drive that huge red monstrosity Uncle Charlie bought her in high school." Alice made a show of pressing her head against the window and looking out at the fields they were passing. "Bel-la," she whined, channeling her inner teenager, "I think those sheep are moving faster than we are."

Renee snorted. A quick glance in the rear-view mirror to observe the occupants of the back seat told Bella that her mother was covering her mouth with her hand, obviously trying not to laugh, as she exchanged looks with her sister.

Bella rolled her eyes at Alice, who had started to make exaggerated snoring noises, and Edward, who was looking at her with the best puppy-dog expression he could manage, mouthing silently to her "Please let me drive."

Not five minutes later, Alice proclaimed that even a Vespa could probably pass them, and Bella gave in and pulled over as much as she could on the narrow road. "Fine! Edward can drive! You two are pathetic!" She got out and made to get in the passenger side, but found that her cousin had folded her small frame through the space between the front and back and slid into the seat just vacated by Edward.

"You can sit in back with Mom and Aunt Renee!" Alice exclaimed cheerfully.

She ground her teeth. One more week, she reminded herself. One more week, and she and Edward would be back to their usual routine. She loved her family, she did, but moving to a different part of the planet was probably the best thing she'd done since sending off her manuscript in hopes of publication.

Edward's warm hand squeezed her own, and he dropped a cheerful kiss on her cheek. "We'll be there soon, my heart. Particularly since I'm driving now." He winked, patted her butt, and made his way to the driver's side.

"Insufferable man," she muttered affectionately. She didn't expect him to hear her, but judging from the beaming smile he sent her over the top of the car, he had. Bella grumpily climbed into the back seat with her mother and aunt. "They're conspiring against me," she complained to Esme.

Esme laughed and nodded. "He fits in well with the family, don't you think, my dear? It's as though he's been with us all along."

_She has no idea_, Bella reflected. She scowled and stuck her tongue out at the smug man watching them in the mirror.

"Ready, ladies?" He asked.

They all made affirmative noises, and he put the car in gear, heading, at a much increased rate, toward Newgrange for a day of showing the Swan-Cullen crowd around the ancient site.

xx-xx-xx

Inside the passage of Newgrange, Alice walked ahead of Bella, craning her head as they walked, twisting this way and that, trying to take in everything. Out of the corner of her eye, Bella could see her mother mirroring Alice's curiosity, while Esme walked with Edward, asking questions of their unofficial tour guide and resident expert. Bella let herself float back to her last visit here with Edward and Boann during the solstice.

How different it felt to be here with other mortals, people who saw only the carving in the stone, and couldn't see the magic that had been apparent to her on the solstice. In either plane (Otherworld or mortal), in either aspect, it took her breath away. To know that the people of this island five thousand years ago tracked the movement of the heavens to such a degree that they could construct this passage to capture the morning sun on the shortest day of the year amazed her. Even before, when she'd visited in the months before Edward had been restored to her, she'd been in awe. The added aspect of knowing Edward Aengus, and of having seen this place from a different perspective, created a greater depth of appreciation for this sacred space.

In an odd way, she felt like the whole site of the _Brú na Bóinne_, with Newgrange and the smaller mounds of Knowth, Dowth, and Four Knocks, was home. She supposed it was Cáer's spirit inside of her recognizing a place of comfort.

She was brought out of her reverie by Esme's question to Edward. "An entire year?"

"An entire year," he confirmed. "Aengus dreamed of a beautiful girl for a year. He did not know who she was, and he fell into a wasting sickness. Fergne, the physician, was summoned and divined that Aengus had grown sick at heart for love of this girl, who was unknown. His mother, the patron goddess of the Boyne River, which is nearby, went in search of this mystery girl for a year, but couldn't find her."

Edward's voice was melodious, and felt for all the world like silk to her ears. He'd completely captured the attention of the Swan-Cullen women as well as several other tourists who had caught his re-telling of their story.

What would they think, she wondered, if they knew that Aengus himself was the storyteller? That Cáer, in the form of Bella, was standing next to him?

A breathless voice floated out of the small group surrounding Edward. "What happened?" The girl who asked looked wide-eyed at Edward, and if she'd been ten years older, Bella might have glared. It was obvious the teenager was enthralled with the handsome redhead.

He unleashed his smile on the girl, and Bella thought the poor thing might melt on the spot. He should really learn to wield that weapon more carefully. The man was dangerous. "With his mother unable to help, his father and one of his brothers went in search of the girl. They eventually found her, and Aengus was taken to verify her identity. Was the girl they'd found the girl of which he'd dreamed for years, now?

"They went until they reached a lake, where they saw three fifties of girls, and indeed Aengus' girl was among them. Each of the girls was linked by a silver chain, but his girl wore a silver necklace and her chain was burnished gold."

Alice giggled. "It sounds almost like a police line-up. 'Do you recognize this woman? Number seven, please step forward.'"

Several of Edward's audience glared at her for interrupting, and Bella choked back a laugh.

"Continue, please," she asked Edward. "I think the Dream of Aengus is my favorite of the myths associated with this place."

Edward winked at her. "It is one of my favorites as well." He smiled hugely at Alice. "If I may continue?"

To Bella's surprise, her cousin blushed slightly, and then nodded. "Please do!"

He cleared his throat and moved forward in the story. "Although they had located the girl of Aengus' dreams, and identified her as Cáer Ibormeith, daughter of Ethal Anbúail of Sidhe Úamuin, Aengus could not claim her, because Sidhe Úamuin lies in the province of Connaught, over which The Dagda had no authority.

"The Dagda asked for the intercession of the king of Connaught, who requested that Ethal give the girl to The Dagda for his son Aengus. Ethal refused. This sparked a battle in which Ethal was defeated. He then told the Dagda and the king of Connaught that he could not give his daughter because her power was greater than his own: she was a shapeshifter, and took the form of a swan one year, the form of a woman the next.

"It was then left to Aengus to go to her and persuade her to take him as her mate. Under threat of his life, Ethal revealed that the next Samhain she would be in the form of a swan and would be at Loch Bél Dracon in the company of three fifties of swans.

"And so it was that on Samhain Aengus went to the Loch and stood as a man at the edge of the lake looking upon three fifties of swans with silver chains and golden hair upon their heads. He called out to the girl, saying 'Come and speak to me, Cáer!' and she replied back 'Who is calling to me?'"

Bella felt compelled to finish the story Edward was telling. It was, after all, her story, too. "And he said to her, 'Aengus is calling.' To which she said, 'I will come, if I may return to the water.' For Cáer had been in love with Aengus for a very long time; it was why she'd been appearing in his dreams. He promised her return to the water, and she went to him, then.

"Aengus put his arms around her and they slept in the form of swans until they had circled the lake three times. It was thus that he kept his word to her. They left the Loch in the form of swans and flew to the _Brú na Bóinne_ and there they sang and for three days and three nights the people fell asleep. The girl Cáer remained with Aengus after that."

Alice, Esme, and Renee all stared at Bella in surprise. "You really did research for your book while you were here, didn't you?" Alice asked. "I thought you were just relaxing and hiding from us!"

Bella shared a long look with Edward. The initial union of Cáer and Aengus was one of the very few memories of being Cáer that she had, and it was a precious one. It amazed her, the clarity of the memory of seeing Aengus there on the side of the lake, calling out to her, so tall and beautiful. She'd been projecting herself into his dreams for so long that she'd thought he'd never find her and claim her. By the Samhain at which he found her, Cáer had been close to giving up on her love finding her. She had been beyond happy when he'd sunk to his knees and wrapped his arms around her, holding her close, and then changing his own form to match hers.

"What a lovely story," Esme said wistfully. Her eyes darted back and forth between Edward and Bella. "You both seem quite attached to this love story," she observed.

Edward grinned as he slipped his arm around Bella's waist and pulled her close. He pressed his lips to her temple, sending shivers down her spine and causing goosebumps to rise on her arms. "I rather identify with Aengus, Esme. I felt incomplete, that I was living a half-life without the woman of my dreams, until I met Bella. She's my very own Cáer."

Bella felt the blush rising up her neck and face, and he turned to hide her face in Edward's chest. Tears pricked at the corner of her eyes. He really had been living a half-life these past thirty years while they'd been separated and he waited for a time when she'd come to Ireland so that they could be reunited.

Later, while they walked to the car to go home, Bella and Alice were quietly chatting when Bella heard her mother's voice carry forward from where she, Esme, and Edward were walking. "Young man," she heard Renee say, "If you don't ask my daughter to marry you soon, I'll permanently relocate here and live with the two of you. And I'll stay until there is a ring on Bella's finger. You obviously love her dearly, and she's the happiest I've ever seen her." Renee's lecture/threat was interrupted by a choking noise Bella assumed was coming from Edward. Her mother continued. "Consider this a promise, Edward. I want my daughter happy. You seem to be the catalyst for that happiness, so act soon or I'll be your newest permanent housemate."

Esme's tinkling laugh carried over and drowned out part of Edward's reply. Bella did hear, however, "I take threats very seriously, Renee. I'll carefully consider your intentions and observations." How he managed to sound sincere and not patronizing, Bella didn't know.

She smiled happily to herself. Perhaps an Irish wedding was in her near future.

xxx-xx-xxx

Bella felt the air in the house compress. And even though she knew she was unlikely to see the cause, her head snapped up in response. She knew, now, that this feeling meant the wards placed on her home by Boann and Brigid were being tested.

Shit. Shitshitshit.

Of course it would be too much to ask for a quiet visit with the women of her family.

Of course it would be too much to ask the aforementioned women in her family to notice nothing. Esme Cullen and Renee Swan, though very different sisters, had frighteningly keen observation skills. Since the visit to Newgrange three days before, the two women had been looking between Bella and Edward thoughtfully, asking pointed questions about his family, talking Edward into telling more of the stories of his people.

Bella and Alice had both inherited those observation skills-which meant that the three visiting women knew something was up in Bella's life-Alice was already guessing tension with Edward's family, which wasn't completely off base-and Bella knew the three women were uncomfortably close to pinning her in a corner and keeping her there until she spilled.

Which she would inevitably do. One of them alone she could handle. All three of them combined equaled a force of nature.

Bella idly wondered if even Brigid could stand up to such a united front.

She quickly decided she never, ever, wanted to know the answer to that question. Finding that out would do no one any good.

The air compressed _again _and she found she had to take shallower breaths. Involuntarily, she brought her hand up to her chest, as though the motion would suddenly make it easier to breathe. Her lungs were burning for lack of oxygen. She couldn't take enough in. The atmosphere around her felt so heavy, the weighted air pushing down on her until she reached out to steady herself on the slatted back of a dining room chair.

Whatever was going on with the wards, it was going to kill her. From the chattering she heard in the kitchen, Renee, Esme, and Alice were blissfully unaware of her impending death by suffocation. Good. At least they weren't being affected.

She sagged nearly to her knees, a black haze creeping into her peripheral giving her tunnel vision, her lungs worked twice as hard to pull in the faintest bit of nourishing air.

Edward _would_ be out with Brigid, doing whatever it was his sister thought to be so urgent. He'd left with a huge grin and a cheeky wave in the morning, knowing full well she'd be at the not-so tender mercies of her mother, aunt, and cousin without him there as a buffer. The coward.

She scowled. Ridiculous. She wasn't going to die here. Her house was warded for cripe's sake! She forced herself to let go of the chair back and took a stumbling step toward the kitchen. Maybe the air was better there. Maybe that was why her guests seemed unaffected. She took one step, and her knees met the hardwood floor, which hurt. She'd have bruises tomorrow. Provided, of course, she didn't suffocate.

Bella inhaled, trying to force the too-dense, too-heavy air into her inadequate lungs. This was brutal. She curled her fingers against the varnished wood floor and pushed forward, crawling in the direction she thought the kitchen would be. At least she thought she was crawling, though the smooth cool wood against her stomach told her she was actually sprawled out on the wood making no progress at all. The black haze was so obscuring her vision that she really had no sense of where she was.

And abruptly, the air went back to normal. She took in a great hulking breath and laid her head on the floor gratefully. What the hell had just happened?

"Bella!" Boann's voice rang out from somewhere near the front of the house. "Bella?"

"She's back here!" Alice answered for her. "Setting the table for dinner." Bella heard her cousin's footsteps move from the kitchen to the front of the house. "I'm Alice!" She heard, "Bella's cousin, visiting from the States. Can I help you?"

"Alice. Lovely to meet you. I am Aen- Edward's mother, Boann. Would you take me to our dear Bella, please?"

Renne and Esme's banter in the kitchen never stopped, and Bella was again glad they had no idea what was going on. All she needed to do was haul herself upright before Alice and Boann could find her sprawled out like this, and no one would know the difference. She placed her hands flat on the floor, arranged herself so that she was on her hands and knees, and pushed up, gasping for air as she did so, her body hungrily trying to replenish its oxygen supply. She teetered on her knees before she fell forward onto her hands again. Apparently this was going to be difficult.

She was bracing herself for another effort when she heard their footsteps stop in the threshold to the room and Alice's horrified "BELLA!" and Boann's echoing, though softer, "Cáer."

She took in another deep breath and grunted out a hoarse "Hi."

In seconds, Alice was next to her and easing her into a seated position on the floor. "Bella, what happened?"

The chattering from the kitchen stopped, and Bella grimaced, knowing Renee and Esme had heard Alice and would momentarily be in the room with her. _Utterly fantastic_, she thought to herself. Just what she needed - two worried mother hens. "I'm fine," she said is as normal a voice as she could manage, which wasn't terribly normal.

Boann knelt gracefully next to her and tucked an elegant finger under Bella's chin, gently tilting her face so that she was facing the goddess. "You are far from fine, child. Tell me what happened."

The melodic sound of that voice and the imagery of water rushing over rocks that it inspired in her mind caused Bella to relax. She smiled at Edward's mother and then glanced apprehensively to Alice's face. With her cousin right there, she couldn't tell Boann that she'd felt for all the world like the air had been too heavy to breathe. "Just felt short of breath, that's all. Dizzy. I'll be ok with a little rest."

Boann looked over at Alice. "Alice, would you bring a cool, moist washcloth for Bella? And a glass of water?"

Alice's eyes widened slightly and she nodded. "I'll be right back, Bella." She jumped up and hurried off to the kitchen, passing Renee and Esme on her way.

Bella looked over at Boann and whispered, "The wards. I can tell when they're tested because the air compresses. But this time...I couldn't breathe." She saw her mother and aunt draw close so she raised her voice back up to a normal speaking level. "Boann, this is my mother, Renee, and my aunt, Esme. Mom, Aunt Esme, this is Boann, Edward's mother." Bella waved vaguely back and forth as she made the introductions, still tired from her fight to breathe.

Renee crouched down so that she was head level with Bella and Boann. "What happened, sweetie?" She reached out and skimmed her fingertips across Bella's cheekbone. "You feel clammy. You said you got dizzy?"

She nodded.

"Have you been getting dizzy often, lately, sweetie?" Bella hated the worried look on Renee's face. Her mom was someone who should never look worried. She was too carefree.

"No mom. Just this once. I don't..." Bella paused. "I don't really know why I did." She shrugged and looked confusedly at her mother. The confusion was honest-she really didn't understand the inability to breathe-"Just one of those things, I guess."

And now she really, truly, understood why Edward had been so concerned when she'd told him how she sensed the wards, about feeling the air compress.

Xx-xx-xx-xx

Edward sagged against the door frame. Bella was asleep, safe in their bed. His mother and sister were gone, though Brigid promised to keep an eye on the house. Their three guests were in the guest rooms, sleeping, and he was beside himself with anger and worry.

Brigid had snapped the two of them back to the home he shared with Bella as soon as they felt Boann's call ripple through their consciousness. It was muted with him, not the clear communication of thought he would've had in his natural state, though the timbre of his mother's call was clear: Bella was in some kind of danger. His sister had clamped her hand on his arm and bent space _just so_, pulling the two of them to the wood line behind the house, at the oak she favored. He hated not being able to do that himself, with his energies tied up in a physical body. They'd come into the house nonchalantly, as though they meant to arrive then and hadn't cut their errands short.

The sight that greeted them when they had entered the house had drained all the blood from his face. Bella, pale, wan, breathing more heavily than was normal, was propped up on the couch in the living room with both of their mothers hovering over her, concern etched on their faces.

Bella had seen past the two concerned women when he walked into the room. "Edward!" He ground his teeth together. Her voice was thin and weak. What had happened?

"Bella," he answered as he strode swiftly across the room to her side. He ignored Boann and Renee, insinuating himself between them to reach her, and cupped her face gently as he knelt. "What happened, _a ghrá_?"

Her beautiful brown eyes flickered uncertainly to her mother, and then back to him. She shrugged  
tiredly. "I had trouble breathing for a moment," she said quietly. "I got a little dizzy."

"Dizzy?" He repeated softly. Edward brought his nose to her cheek to nuzzle her, and whisper so that only she (and, he knew, the deities in the room) could hear. "The wards?"

She weakly grabbed his forearm and nodded her confirmation. He felt his stomach flip. His earlier worries about her reaction to the wards were confirmed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes on myths and names brought up in this chapter. I know I've dumped quite a few names on you lovelies with this story, and this chapter in particular. :0)  
> *Mananann: (from Jones' Celtic Encyclopedia http:/www(dot)maryjones(dot)us ) Irish god of the sea, ruler of the Otherworld, and keeper of the magic tools the the Tuatha Dé Danann.  
> *When Bella talks about the Feast of Goibniu, she is paraphrasing a a translation quoted by Jean Markale in The Epics of Celtic Ireland: Ancient Tales of Mystery and Magic.  
> *Goibniu: (from Jones' Celtic Encyclopedia http:/www(dot)maryjones(dot)us ) The god of smithing; member of the Tuatha Dé Danann and creator of their weapons.  
> *Midir: (from Early Irish Myths and Sagas, translated by Jeffery Gantz) A son of The Dagda, he is Aengus' half-brother, and also Aengus' foster-father. He raised Aengus until Aengus was nine and The Dagda recognized Aengus as his son (all of which happens in "The Wooing of Étaín").  
> *Neit: (from www(dot)timelessmyths(dot)com)God of war, he may have been a consort of the Morrigan. He doesn't come off nearly so bad in the stories I've read. I just needed a bad guy and appropriated him.
> 
> *Sidhe: (from Jones' Celtic Encyclopedia http:/www(dot)maryjones(dot)us )While the term sídhe is used to refer to what we call "fairies," the word originally meant "hill." When the Milesians arrived after the de Dannan, they drove the gods under the hollow hills, which were called sídhe. Eventually, the hills and the people became one in the minds of the Irish, who refered to them both as sídhe.  
> *Edward is telling the tale "The Dream of Aengus" (which is the story that inspired me to write Aengus initially).


	11. Chapter 11

"How are you feeling, sweetie?" Renee's soft voice soothed Bella almost as much as Edward's warm arms wrapped around her did. She wiggled her toes under the snuggly, if garish, afghan she and Esme had made together several years before out of yarn scraps. It matched nothing, but it was Bella's favorite; her grown up rendition of a security blanket. Looking around, she realized she must have fallen asleep on Edward's lap on the sofa. She was on his lap, his arms holding her close, her head resting on his chest and his cheek pressed to the top of her head. The afghan was tucked in around them and they were toasty and warm. Edward's chest rose and fell gently with his breaths and Bella had to fight the urge to drift to sleep again at the comforting motion.

She blinked the sleep out of her eyes and peered over at her mother, shifting slightly in Edward's lap, and noticed that Renee looked uncharacteristically worried. Her normally carefree eyes were clouded with concern and her forehead furrowed in thought. Taking in her mother's face, for the first time, Bella realized that at some point, Renee had aged. There was more silver in her ash-brown hair now than Bella remembered, and the laugh lines around her mouth and eyes were more pronounced. She didn't look the fifty-five she was, but she no longer looked as though she could simply be Bella's older sister, either.

When had her mother gotten older?

Pushing that thought aside, she dragged a small smile onto her face. Her voice quiet, she replied, "I'm ok, Mom. I feel better now that I've rested. And Edward always makes me feel better."

"Honey," Renee paused. It was clear to Bella that her mother was weighing her words carefully. That alone told her how much the older woman was concerned; Renee typically spoke what she thought, with little by way of a filter.

"Mom," Bella interrupted, "would this conversation be better over a cup of coffee? And when I'm not using Edward as a chair-slash-mattress?" She kept her voice pitched low in an effort not to disturb Edward's sleep. He'd had a rough night, worrying over her like a distressed mother hen. The poor man needed his rest.

She gently began the task of slipping out of his embrace, a task made more difficult by his arms contracting whenever she made to pull herself away from him. Even in his sleep, he wasn't letting go.

She exchanged an amused look with Renee.

There was nothing for it. She'd have to wake him up. She turned and nuzzled his cheek with her nose, murmuring against his skin, "Edward, love, let me go." She felt his arms tighten again and she rolled her eyes. Sleeping. Right. "Edward," She growled lowly, "I need to pee, and I need to talk to Mom. Let me go." With this last command, she nipped his chin, catching the stubbly skin with her teeth, and he cracked one eye open to appraise her.

"You'll come back when you're done?" He questioned.

Bella graced him with her brightest smile. "Of course!" She didn't specify _when_ she'd be done, or when she'd make her way back to him—there was a good chance he'd be awake by the time she and Renee finished their talk—but she meant what she said, and decided worrying about the details wouldn't do any good.

She wondered if that line of thinking came from spending too much time with Edward recently, or if Emmett's life-long influence was finally coming out. Then she decided it didn't matter. Minor details. She was just glad her brother and Edward hadn't had a chance to join forces yet. They'd be a dangerous combination. She made a mental note not to encourage _too_ much friendliness between the two men.

Edward seemed to think on her agreement to get back for a few moments, and Bella quashed the urge to groan. She could almost feel the mischievousness radiating out from him. She gave her mother a long-suffering look, and Renee chuckled.

"I have conditions for your release," he informed her. He'd opened both eyes just enough for her to discern the liquid field green of his irises through his eyelashes. His thumb was rubbing circles over her side as he held her tight and his expression was just this side of smug. Bella frowned.

"I'll take that under consideration, oh mighty and powerful jailer." She lost the fight against rolling her eyes and saw his lips twitch the slightest bit in response. "Tell me your conditions, and I'll tell you if I agree to them."

He removed one arm from her, tightening the remaining one around her waist, tying her to him as effectively as an iron band would have done-even one-armed there was no way could escape his grasp. _Not that_, she thought, _I'm planning on fighting all that hard anyway._

"One." With his free hand, he held up his index finger. "Renee lets me call her 'mum.'"

Renee laughed. "Of course!"

Edward nodded and smiled hugely at the older woman. "Thanks, Mum."

It was not, Bella decided (not for the first time), fair that he could absolutely ooze 'trouble' and yet win over any woman in the vicinity with his charm and smile. Renee had been fined tuned to detect up-to-no-good behavior by raising Emmett, and during most of her visit with them had had no trouble calling Edward out on his scheming. He had her mother completely wrapped around his finger now, though. Bella's own radar was going off. She was positive that his last condition would be a doozy.

"Two." His middle finger joined his index finger. "I get a proper good morning kiss from my lady fair."

"I'll think about it," she answered dryly. "What's your third condition?"

He had the gall to act hurt. "You won't give your consent immediately on this matter? I feel it is quite important, _a ghrá_."

Ruthlessly, Bella fought down the desire to give in and thoroughly kiss him, Renee as audience or not. She wanted to know what he was getting at. "As I said, I'll think about it." She affected her most professional and calm expression. "What's your third condition?"

She found herself on the receiving end of a considering, probing look. "Feeling stubborn, are we?" he murmured. Then, more loudly, for Renee's benefit: "Three." He raised his ring finger to accompany the previous two. "You bring me a freshly brewed cup of coffee. The kind Rosalie sent you as incentive to finish your manuscript."

Bella tilted her head in acknowledgement. "Done," she agreed.

Her mother choked on a laugh. "Coffee, but no kiss, Bella?"

She brought her chin up and with as much mock haughtiness as she could manage, answered. "Well the latter is rather important, don't you think, Mother? He's demanding a kiss of a hostage!"

With much dramatics, Edward matched her attitude with a long-suffering sigh. "You see, Mum?" He spoke over her head to her mother. "What I suffer through? She's the most beautiful creature in all of Ireland, but she's mulish. I keep her warm and let her use me as a common pillow, and I'm rewarded with coffee, but the denial of her delightful lips. What is the world coming to?"

Renee leaned over and patted him consolingly on the knee. "I know. She's always been a stubborn one. Do you know, she held onto her childhood invisible friend years longer than other kids her age? Absolutely refused to give him up, even when she had other kids to play with." She turned her attention to Bella, who'd stiffened at the mention of her 'invisible friend'-Edward-and her family's long-ago gentle insistence that she give him up for real-life playmates. "What was it you called him, dear? Bob? No, that was the name of Emmett's."

Renee pursed her lips in thought and Bella glanced at Edward in frustration. Even though it had been over twenty years since she'd realized she couldn't tell her family that she'd kept him as her childhood imaginary friend, knew now why she'd clung to him so tightly despite her family's encouragement to move on, and even though he was made flesh and holding her tightly to him, the old hurt and feelings of helplessness and defiance were just under the surface for her, and her mother was blindly stirring all that back up.

She pushed down the childhood feelings of resentment and confusion and stuck her tongue out at Renee, hoping to keep the lighthearted banter up. "Well, my invisible friend was a far superior playmate than Emmett or Alice-" she paused as an indignant "hey!" came from the doorway where she'd seen her cousin lurking "-were, for a while there. All Alice wanted to do was play dress up and Emmett was only interested in escaping from me so he could impress girls."

Alice poked her head in. "You could've used the fashion advice, Bella. You didn't start paying attention to how you dressed until you met Rose; far too late, if you ask me."

Between the mischievous aura that was radiating off of Edward and the gleam in Alice's eyes, Bella found herself nervous. In spite of her great love for both people, her palms started to sweat. Alice with that gleam was a bad sign.

Why, again, had she wanted to ever integrate her family and Edward? She thanked the stars that her family was flying back in the very near future.

Alice winked at Renee, who got up to leave, telling her daughter as she left, "Don't think this means our tête-à-tête is cancelled, dear. I just know better than to get in Alice's way." With a laugh she left Bella to the tender mercies of the two people she internally labeled, for the moment, Curly and Moe. Alice was definitely Moe. Alice stood in front of the couple, Bella still securely in Edward's arms, and grinned at them. "How do you feel about good, old-fashioned tickle torture, Edward? You've already got her almost immobile." She felt Edward's chest rumble against her as he laughed and tightened his grip. "Excellent plan, little imp. Bella, I wholly approve of your cousin. She can visit any time." Bella only had time to groan in frustration and begin to impotently struggle against her torturers before Alice's fingers were dancing across her ribs and she, her younger cousin, and her immortal god boyfriend, were reduced to childhood, the two women laughing so hard they were crying and Edward's rich laugh booming out across the house.

xx-xx-xx

Alice looked at Renee and Esme. "We should mail some of our luggage home. With everything we bought yesterday, we can't possibly fit everything in car or meet the limit on free luggage imposed by the airline."

The two older women nodded. Esme and Alice had, Bella thought with a mental roll of her eyes, single-handedly boosted the local economy with their shopping expedition the day before. Bella had been dragged along, half willingly, and Edward had of course accompanied them, insistent on not letting her out of his sight. The downside was that she was discovering it was possible to, yes, have too much Edward in twenty-four hours. The upside was that shower time had been ridiculously entertaining and distracting the past few days.

She saw Edward's face light up at Alice's suggestion. Bella cocked a quizzical eyebrow at her bronze-haired god, consciously trying to mimic the sexy look he regularly sent her way. By the smirk he was clearly fighting down, he realized what she was attempting, even if she failed miserably. He winked at her before turning his attention to her petite cousin.

"I think that's a great idea, Alice. Shipping via the post will be less expensive, and it means there will be room in the car for me….which means you won't have to suffer through Bella's driving one last time." His smile, Bella reflected, was rather too brilliant, considering he'd just insulted her driving skills. She plucked a small piece of broccoli off of the tray sitting on the table between them and threw it at him, hitting him squarely in the ear.

Esme and Renee, chatting at the other end of the table, glanced at the 'kids' and started snickering. Bella stopped watching them when a carrot stick smacked her soundly in the cheek. She turned her attention to her beaming partner.

The days following the "testing" of the wards, when they'd found out exactly how extreme her sensitivity was, had been tense for her and Edward. They both had expected further intrusions, and when none came they'd been a bit off balance. Not willing to put a damper on the last part of her family's visit, she'd forced a cheery attitude, and had fallen into, with Alice and Edward, a pattern of childishness. Alice and Edward had taken to pranking each other and they regularly joined forces now, against Bella.

If she hadn't enjoyed the interactions so much, loved the merry twinkle of "trouble" that Edward's expression sported, she would've been upset at being on the receiving end of their plots. If it had been Emmett and Alice, she probably would've been. If she hadn't had such a scare, and been in need of levity, she probably would've been. As it was, she was unusually amicable to being harassed, punk'd, and ganged up on.

"Don't get used to it," she'd warned Edward. He'd only winked and kissed her thoroughly before going off to finish whatever bit of plotting against her cousin he'd been involved in. All she knew was that it resulted in Alice's hair being magenta for three days. She was reasonably certain he'd cheated and used his abilities for the effect. Alice's ineffective attempts to dye her hair black again had all failed miserably, and it wasn't until she declared magenta a color worthy of Gwen Stefani, and therefore acceptable, that her preferred black came back.

_That_ had led to contemplative looks from Alice and whispered conferences between Renee, Esme, and Alice, which made Bella nervous.

Having two chunks of cheese hit her in the face simultaneously brought her out of her moment of reflection, and she saw four amused faces focused on her. "Only Bella," Esme said with laughter lacing her voice, "could zone out at what is clearly the beginning of a food fight."

Bella huffed, and then whipped a slice of bell pepper down the table, missing her aunt's head by several inches.

Esme held her hands up in surrender. "Neutral territory! You three go at each other. We'll just…supervise."

The details of the food fight were a blur to her, but in the end, she was certain she had vegetable dip in her hair. It was the only substance she could think of that had been out and could feel so…gooey…on her head. It felt gross, but it was worth the reduction in the tension she'd felt radiating from Edward since her experience with the wards a few days ago. He needed a break.

Bella saw the corners of Edward's mouth curl up, saw the mischief brewing under the surface of his otherwise relaxed and innocent expression. Their three visitors were packing, leaving the two of them to finish cleaning after the three-way food fight she'd instigated. His lips twitched and she held up her hand, palm toward him, to forestall the inevitable comment. There was a suspicious tug at his lips again, and she raised an eyebrow in challenge. _If he's smart,_ she thought, _he'll let it go_.

She wasn't entirely sure he'd choose the smart move, though. Gone were the days when they treated each other like fragile figurines, frightened of damaging each other or inciting ire; now were the days when they truly learned how to live with one another, understanding limits, buttons, and soft spots. In December, she reflected, he would've let it go, no problem. Now...now he seemed to get a perverse joy out of making her stamp her foot in outrage, punch him in the shoulder in censure, or rant against the injustices of the world.

Bella was a bit uncomfortable at how easy it was to incite her. She'd thought after a lifetime of Emmett, she had no more buttons to push, that her brother had broken her of her quick temper. Edward's angle was different, more subtle at some times, shockingly blunt at others, but if he had the desire to see her flushed and fuming, he could get her there faster than anyone.

Her mother said it was a sign of how much she'd let the infuriating, beautiful man into her heart. Bella was inclined to think he was just a mischief-causing brat of a god. He'd told her, upon questioning, that she was simply stunning while in a snit, and the only other time she was so gloriously flushed was when they made love-and if she preferred, he had no problems getting her naked every time he had the desire to see her so worked up.

She'd been very, very tempted to take him up on that offer. Her rational mind, however, had reminded her that agreeing to that might very well mean she'd find her clothes disappearing while shopping or drinking at the pub. And while she could appreciate the thrill of almost being caught in semi-private places, she was not an exhibitionist, and wanted no audience.

And at any rate, she didn't want anyone other than Edward to see her in such a state of undress.

xx-xx-xxx

Bella clamped her hand over her eyes and groaned as the distinctive opening notes of "Blueberry Hill" found their way through the stereo speakers in the living room. As much as she liked the song, her mother's fondness for Fats Domino was, in Emmett's words, epic, and the whole family had heard his music many, many, many times over the years. She thought she probably had his entire catalog memorized. She was positive Renee did.

Next to her, she heard Edward's echoing groan. "You Swan women and your compulsive music listening," he carped in a voice that was half affection, half frustration. "You with Jimmy Buffett, your mother with Fats Domino." He rolled his eyes.

"Careful," she murmured in his ear. "Or I'll make good on my threat to put 'Pencil Thin Mustache' on repeat." She gently kissed the patch of skin just below his ear. "You'll survive. They're only here another two days."

Bella giggled when she felt his arm wrap around her waist and pull her snuggly against his body. "I can't wait," he whispered fiercely against her neck. "I'm tired of confining our activities to non-community space. He left his hand drift down to her rear, which he squeezed and used to pull her in tighter. His voice seemed to drop further, raising the hair on Bella's arms and increasing her own desire. "It will be nice, when they've left, to take you on the floor, or the couch, or on the table or counter, when the mood strikes, don't you think?"

Bella couldn't repress the moan that escaped her throat. "Bedroom," she choked out. "Now."

Edward's response was interrupted by an annoying, cheerful voice from the doorway to Bella's office, where the couple had been hiding from their guests. Alice's laughing voice pierced the cozy bubble of lust that had formed around them. "Damn, Bella. No wonder you shacked up with Edward so soon after meeting him. You two never take your hands off of each other!"

She looked over to see her cousin jauntily leaning against the doorframe with an amused smirk on her face. Briefly, she wondered if it would be all that terrible if she took one of her books off the bookshelf to her left and hurled it at Alice. Surely violence would be acceptable in such a situation? As she thought through this course of action, she realized that Edward was turning the two of them so he could face their intruder.

His voice was low and, even to Bella, sounded menacing, though it lacked the malice she'd heard him use during the confrontation in the Otherworld. "Alice."

Bella gloated internally as the pleased smirk slid off the smaller woman's face. "Edward," she returned with only the slightest note of doubt in her voice. "You've been telling me I'm your favorite of Bella's relatives. You wouldn't do anything, would you?" Alice continued to affect confidence and her normal chipper air, but Bella could see the underlying worry. Edward really could look quite fierce when he wanted to—something her cousin was just beginning to understand.

She felt, rather than saw, the slow, dangerous smile spread across Edward's face. "If I were you, Alice," he began, "I'd start running about right now." Bella shivered as the silky sound of his voice washed over her.

Alice squeaked and darted from the door, her small frame disappearing from sight as she rounded a corner.

Edward nuzzled Bella's neck, causing her to break out in goose bumps. "Now," he said, trailing kisses from her jaw down to her collarbone, "where were we before the little imp interrupted us?"

She answered by maneuvering so that she could bite his neck. "Close the door," she said breathily, "we haven't used my desk in a while."

Their lips met hungrily, and they moved toward her desk, away from the door. Bella felt Edward's arm move and heard the door close firmly, and the lock turn. There were, she reminded herself with an internal smile, certainly benefits to being involved with someone with supernatural powers. Closing a door from several feet away, locking it, and—oh!—causing all clothing to disappear could be quite convenient.

By the time they separated their lips to take deep, needed breaths, Edward had used his abilities to remove the mess from her monstrous mahogany desk; the laptop, papers, notebooks, and notes were stacked haphazardly on the floor next to the carved feet. It'd been made to be a double-sided desk to be shared by two workers facing each other. However, she'd pushed one side against the wall, sacrificing the drawer space, and used the large surface to spread out everything she was working on in one place. At just shy of five feet deep and about four feet long, it was nearly large enough for her to stretch out on it. At times like these, when the love of her life was gently tossing her, naked, onto the top, she was grateful for its size and sturdiness.

xx-xx-xx

Each encounter with Bella, Edward reflected, was an experience in sensory input. The feel of her soft skin stretched over firm muscles, her unique Bella taste, her pulse pounding under his fingertips, the moisture from her lips. He kneeled between her legs, before the end of the desk and draped her legs over his shoulders and he was awash in sensation: the slight stubble on her legs brushing the skin of his shoulders, the coolness of the air kissing his neck, the sound of their joined heavy breathing, her muscles contracting under his hands where he griped her thighs.

He slowly kissed the soft skin on the inside of her thigh, gently sucking on a spot right above her femoral artery, carefully pinching and rolling a bit of skin between his tongue and lips as he savored the taste and texture of her. As he kissed and suckled he way up her inner thigh, his hands continued to caress her legs and hips and on the occasional pass, he let his fingers skim over the soft, curl-covered juncture between her legs. Each time he did so, she arched her body up to meet his hand, questing for a bit more pressure. He blew gently on the skin he'd moistened with his kisses and was gratified to see gooseflesh raise up in response. It amazed him, how responsive her body was. Being with his heart was like nothing else in existence.

Edward turned his head 180 degrees, to award her other leg with similar attention and Bella whined in response. "I thought we were in a hurry!" she half-whined, half panted.

He chuckled and nipped and licked at the smooth skin before him. "What if I don't want to hurry?" He dragged his tongue from the spot closest to the top of her leg, with his cheek flush against her dripping heat, down toward her knee. "What if I want to enjoy the feast, savor you?" Shifting and lifting her leg up so he could bite at the sensitive skin behind her knee, he hummed happily at the sensory input he was getting from her. The hot, smooth skin beginning to glisten with sweat, the sounds heavy breathing and panting, those delightful little whimpers, the wonderful aroma that made his eyes roll back in his head with pleasure as he worked his way back up leg to the spot she so desperately wanted him to pay attention to.

"You are perfect, _a ghrá_. Divine. Mmmm."

With simple and heartfelt pleasure, he brought her back arching off of the desk, reveling in her hands all but ripping his hair (though he did spare a quick, grateful thought for his durability), her muscled legs momentarily clenched around his head, her shiver-inducing keen of release. As she shuddered, he shimmied his way up her body, nipping and licking her soft stomach, her ribs, the underside of her breasts and her nipples, caressing and breathing deeply at her neck, before he captured her lips and they lost themselves in a kiss that left each one of them gasping for air.

Bella wrapped trembling arms around his torso and pulled him flush against her. Shaking legs wrapped around his hips as she embraced him. "Come home," she whispered in his ear, her voice barely audible even to him. With utter joy, he did.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, for those of you who actually know your Irish mythology, I'm bending these folks to fit my own plot, and running with the idea that the legends only get it sometimes right. Please no pitchforks or flames because I monkeyed around with established mythical beings and their history. 'Kthanksbye.

"My cousin and I need girl time," Alice announced imperiously. "You," she pointed at Edward, "will escort our mothers about town while I grill Bella about your love life."

Bella bit down hard on her bottom lip to stop herself from laughing at Alice. "Alright Napoleon, Edward will tool around the shops with Mom and Aunt Esme while you and I bring all the loot you need to ship home to the post office."

Alice huffed. "As if Napoleon had anything on me."

"I think he had a couple of inches on you, actually." Edward supplied with a smirk. "I'm pretty sure he was about Bella's height." He arched an elegant eyebrow, and Bella internally railed against the unfairness of life that such a simple act could be so damn _hot_. "Of course," he added, "we all know you don't have to be over five feet tall to be a dictator."

"I'm five foot even!"

"Only because you spike your hair, short stuff." Bella grunted when she felt Alice's foot connect with her shin in retaliation. "Evil little thing," she said affectionately.

"Don't you forget it," snarked Alice. "Now." She turned to her mother, aunt, and the smirking redhead with the sparkling green eyes. "You three, shoo. I'm sure you can entertain them with stories of the old gods, Edward. Leave your beloved and I in peace while we gossip one last time before we three fly home tomorrow."

Edward tipped an imaginary hat in Alice's direction. "As you say, little dictator. But I get a good-bye-for-the-afternoon-kiss from my delectably delightful love, first."

Alice rolled her eyes good naturedly. "Fine, fine. Smooch, then babysit."

Bella grinned when she saw Esme and Renee exchange a look at that comment. "'Babysit,' Alice?" Esme queried.

A long sigh was her answer, until the daughter in question linked arms with her mother and aunt. "I mean, of course, Mother darlingist, that you and Aunt Renee will be babysitting Edward…"

Alice's voice faded to the background as Edward filled her vision. If the color green could be merry, his eyes were. The liquid emerald of his irises had an almost jaunty feel to them, and Bella found herself wondering how much of that was Edward's god-hood creeping out and how much was a result of her own romantic notions. She chased that thread of thought until she was brought back to reality by his lips gently pressing on her own.

"_A_ _ghrá_?" Edward queried quietly.

The faint heat of a blush crept across her cheeks. "I got distracted," she murmured guiltily.

He gently bumped noses with her, a sparkle in his eyes. "Distracted, hmm? By my devastating good looks?"

Bella snorted in response, then grinned at him. In a quiet voice, she answered, "By your freakishly emotive swirly green eyes. What are you, supernatural or something?"

She thought the slight quirk at the corner of his mouth was going to be his only reply when he nuzzled her cheek and spoke quietly in her ear. "Or something." Feeling his breath tickle her skin sent her heart racing and raised the fine hairs on her arms. She cursed the very public arena, because in that moment she wanted nothing more than to wrap her legs around him and shag him senseless.

As they pulled away from each other, Edward winked at her and ran his finger lightly over her arm. "Save that thought," he urged. By the wicked look on his face, he was thoroughly enjoying getting this kind of rise out of her when she'd be forced to sit on it until they were safely apart from her visiting family.

"Brat."

He gave her one of his weapons-grade smiles that inevitably turned her knees to Jell-O, then turned his attention to the two older women, who were standing next to Alice, watching the two of them with fond and pleased expressions on their faces.

xx-xx-xx

As they left the post office, having shipped all the excess baggage accumulated by Alice and Esme, Alice made a sad little noise. "It makes me a little sad to see it all go."

Bella swung her head around to look incredulously at Alice. "It will meet you at home. You can say goodbye. It's only temporary."

Her cousin exhaled an aggrieved sigh. "But I bonded with everything during my stay here, during the shopping trip and crowded drives—Bella, you really need a bigger car—during the packing process. What if something happens and the cargo plane bites it over the Atlantic and my clothes and souvenirs are gone forever?" Her finely boned face was twisted into an expression of concern that other, normal people, wore when worrying about small children and beloved pets, not clothes and souvenirs.

The smile stretching across her face reminded her of old times, when she was floundering and didn't understand why, when Alice and Emmett were the two people she could connect to. This moment with Alice, Alice's mini rant of worry, was so classically Alice that it was a spot of pure joy for Bella. She wrapped her arm around the smaller woman's shoulders and squeezed. "I love you, cousin o' mine."

In reciprocation, Alice slipped her arm around Bella's waist. "I love you too, even if you did move to the other side of the world."

"I gave you an excuse to explore new shopping venues. Don't act like it's a hardship."

"You ran away with that Big A guy you two were telling us about at New Castle."

"New Castle, Alice?"

"New Gate?"

"_Newgrange._"

"Newgrange. The really cool place that you and Edward—I'm sorry, Aengus—took us to see. Where you were inspired to write your new book."

Bella pulled away to better look at Alice. "You think he's Aengus, really?"

"Well after the two of you told your tale so well on our little tour—complete with moon eyes and heavy sighs—and with all the stories Big A told us about the myths, I thought you two were just identifying with the legend, you know? After all, your imaginary friend when we were kids was Edward. I can see the parallels there." Alice paused and stared at Bella for several long breaths. "And then you had your attack. And his mother's name is Boann. And she almost called him a name that starts with 'A' and she definitely didn't call you Bella when she first saw you half collapsed on the floor. Now, I wasn't sitting on top of her, but I'm fairly certain she called you 'Cáer.'"

Bella was positive her jaw was on the floor. As she started to gather it back into place to speak, Alice continued on.

"Also, I've had a Feeling about him since you brought him over for Thanksgiving."

"What kind of feeling?"

"A Feeling. Capital 'F.'"

"You're not going to tell me?"

"I don't want to mess it up by telling you details. So, I'll just tell you I have one of my Feelings about him, and leave it at that." Alice's eyes were sparkling, giving Bella the impression that she was withholding great information. She wrapped her arm back around Bella's waist and steered her toward the little café they'd noticed on their way to the post office.

"Do Renee and Aunt Esme know?" Bella asked.

Alice pursed her lips and tilted her head in thought. "I don't know," she answered after a short moment of consideration. "I'm pretty sure Aunt Renee thinks Edward hung the moon, and that Mom has some questions, but they weren't close enough to hear Boann talk when you had your attack, so they didn't catch her calling you 'Cáer.' And really, it was that in combination with your story-telling at Newgrange that let me work things out." She paused and blew out a breath. "After that, I just started watching you two. And, seriously, no way my hair is magically magenta and then not magenta without special mojo. Hair dye doesn't work that way." She wrinkled up her nose and made a face. "That dirty cheater. Using powers in a prank war."

Bella felt a little, almost hysterical, laugh bubble up. No way was her cousin calling Edward on his god-hood, and being so calm about it. "And you're ok with all this? Edward being a god from Irish myth? How are you not freaking out? I mean, I lived it, and I had freak out moments back at the beginning."

"Oh, you just missed my private hyperventilation moment in the shower the day I put it all together in my head. I decided to keep it private."

Alice delivered this answer with such aplomb that Bella could do nothing more than gape for a moment.

She of the petite frame and crazy, short, spiky black hair pointed at a table with a prime view of the street outside and directed, "Sit there. I'll take care of the tea. All discussions go better with tea."

After blinking in surprise a couple of times, her brain engaged and Bella gave her cousin a mock salute and sat at the indicated table, leaving the chair with the best viewing angle open for the other woman.

Although the seat she'd left open for Alice had a better view of the street, Bella could still see people walking past the café, and saw that Edward was across the street with Esme and Renee, escorting the two women as they used the afternoon for some last-minute shopping and gave their daughters alone time to bond before the three women flew back home. On the same side of the street as the café, she saw two men walking, one of whom she could have sworn was watching her. She couldn't imagine why. Neither man was someone she knew or even looked familiar.

The dark-haired man maintained eye contact with her as he and the other man walked past, and she shivered at the intensity of his stare. For a moment she felt like he wasn't looking at _her_ so much as he was tracing the outline of her body with his eyes.

A few beats of her heart later, she gasped. Hadn't Edward told her that she had a glowy sort of effect? That others from the Otherworld would take one look at her and know she was no ordinary human? That man was obviously no normal human, if he could see her Otherworldly glow. Her eyes frantically combed the street; she saw no one. The strange man and his companion were out of view, and it seemed Edward, Esme, and Renee had gone into one of the shops across the street.

Bella found herself wondering what type of Otherworld inhabitant the one who'd stared at her was. A deity, like Edward? A mischievous fae? She amused herself by running through the many and various types of Otherworld denizens while she waited on Alice, who, she eventually realized, was taking a long time.

She turned her attention to the part of the shop where she'd last seen her little cousin, talking to the employees. Not seeing her, Bella turned so she could take in the whole café. Alice wasn't in sight anywhere. A quick look outside told her that neither Alice nor the others were nearby. She stood, intending to walk the short circuit around the café to look for her cousin when she realized someone was behind her.

She felt a strong arm snake around her waist, and for a precious second or two she thought perhaps it might be Edward surprising her. But then her brain caught up to reality and she began cataloging the differences between her love god and whoever this was. The person holding her was broader, had thicker forearms, smelled different. He felt wrong.

Bella stiffened, wanting to jerk away and give the strange man a piece of her mind for being so presumptuous. Then his other arm came around her, trapping her arms against her body and crushing her back against his chest. _Oh_, she belatedly thought. _Not someone who is just inappropriately hitting on a strange woman, or mistaking me for someone else._ And then, on the heels of that thought: _I am an idiot_. She imagined to anyone in the café, they probably looked like they were lovers, with him holding her so close.

She ground her teeth together and brought her foot up to slam into the man's foot when she felt a prick in her arm. Her foot connected with its target and the man grunted, uttering a string of harsh-sounding words in a language she didn't recognize, though she thought it might be a form of Gaelic.

His mouth was next to her ear now, his deep voice was talking to her. Her body felt heavy; her eyes were drooping. Bella fought against the lethargy, willing her arms to move, her legs to carry her away from this awful embrace, but nothing worked. Blinking hard to clear her sight, she realized she was facing the window and looking out into the street. Across the way, Renee and Esme walked out of the shop, followed by Edward.

She entertained a wild moment of hope. Edward would look across the street, see her in the window in the unwanted arms of this man, and come to her rescue. It was what would happen in a story or fairy tale. The moment faded when he only quirked his lips when he looked in the café's window, and continued with her mother and aunt. Her immediate hope gone, she allowed the lethargy to overtake her and she sagged into the strange arms of her kidnapper. Bella's last coherent thought before she faded into blackness was _What happened to Alice?_

xx-xxx-xx

Renee's arm was looped through his as he meandered through an antique shop with the ladies. She kept up a constant stream of chatter and commentary, which allowed him to half listen, and half daydream about his Bella. He kept enough of his attention on her to nod and make appropriate noises at the right time, only to be brought up short when he realized that Renee had stopped walking and he hadn't.

"I'm sorry?" He offered his most charming smile, the one Bella told him needed to be registered as a dangerous weapon, in the hopes that his lack of attention to her would not be called out.

She smiled ruefully at him. "Don't give me that smile. You've hardly listened to a word I've said. I just asked you if you thought I'd make an acceptable cook for your wedding to Bella, and you said 'yes,' which anyone would know is an idiotic idea. Never should I be allowed to cook for other people at a special occasion."

He blinked slowly as he looked at her, weighing his options. He decided to steer clear of the topic of her cooking. There was no way he could be diplomatic and not sound like he was just trying to kiss her ass. "I haven't even asked her to marry me yet, Mum, and you're already kicking around ideas for food at our wedding? What if we elope to Vegas and get hitched by Elvis?"

Renee scoffed. "As if you were that stupid. Esme and I would skin you alive and use your hide as a warning to other idiot men if you eloped to Vegas. And anyway, Bella would choose aliens over Elvis any day. Your plan is flawed." She squeezed his arm in what he hoped was affection. "A proper wedding, young man, and I recommend asking soon. I want my daughter happily married. You're obviously the right person for her, I'm clear on that. So when are you putting a ring on her finger?"

Edward beamed at the demanding woman on his arm. He'd always appreciated Renee's no-bullshit approach to getting people to do what she wanted. Where other women might come in sideways and try to manipulate, Renee was straightforward and easy to understand when it came to demands. "Mum," he used his silkiest non-seductive voice, "would you like to see the engagement ring I've had made before or after I formally ask you and Charlie for Bella's hand? Or, rather, before or after Bella accepts?"

Internally, Edward cheered as Renee simply gaped at him for a few seconds before gathering herself and holding up her hand as if to ward him off. "I don't want to see it until it's on her finger! Bella should be the first person besides you to see her engagement ring." She squeezed his arm and pulled him into a hug. "I could kiss you," she told him in a delighted voice.

He was going to respond to that—really, it was a statement that just begged for a snappy response—when he was distracted by Alice.

"Edward." Alice's chipper voice rang out to him as she jogged to catch up to him and the two women. "Mom, Aunt Renee," she greeted, slightly out of breath, "how's the shopping? Bella hasn't let me buy anything, says there's no more room in my luggage." She stopped and looked around. "Where is she, anyway? She said she was walking ahead to meet the three of you."

Edward frowned at the small mortal he'd developed quite a fondness for. "She hasn't met with us, Alice."

He kept himself from snarling in frustration by only the thinnest bit of self-control. If his heart wasn't with Alice, and she wasn't with him, it could only be bad news. Straining to keep his voice even and the anger and fear out, he told Alice, "We need to go to the café."

As soon as he stepped foot in the small café, his senses were inundated with magic. He focused on it, teasing out the fading weaves to learn more about what was done here, and by whom. There was a residue of something he couldn't quite identify—something he should know, but…no. It was out of his grasp, now.

For a moment, it was all he could do to keep himself under control. A violent fury flowed through his body. His magic wanted an outlet; it was humming under his skin and causing faint sparks in the air around him. Anyone nearby with sensitivity to magic or the ability to sense beings from the Otherworld would know to stay far from him. A small part of his mind noted that indeed, Alice and her mother and aunt were stepping cautiously back from him. Clamping down on the panic and fury that threatened to overwhelm him, he sent out a silent call to his mother and sister. Limited as he was in this body, it wasn't much more than Bella's name and an urgent need for help, but it would be enough.

Regaining enough calmness to concentrate, he sank his awareness into the magic permeating the eating area. He could feel heavy glamours—he had no doubt now that the image he'd seen from the street of Alice and Bella talking over tea had been an illusion, the magic camouflaged so that he would not see it from across the street—and he felt, too, more powerful magics. Probably how Alice thought Bella was coming to join him, Renee, and Esme.

Why, why hadn't he sensed this much magic being used in fairly close proximity? He'd only been across the street; he ought to have been able to feel the glamours being woven. Edward frowned, desperately trying to identify that familiar feel to the magic. He could hear Alice talking, then felt her small hand on his forearm but he was too busy keeping himself from lashing out at all the happy, oblivious mortals who'd been _right there_ when his heart had been taken. If he stopped to talk to Alice right now, he'd lose the tenuous control was managing.

Edward felt the presence of his mother and sister as the two goddesses arrived just around the corner. He allowed himself to take a deep breath as Boann's presence calmed him. Drawing strength from his mother before she even came into their line of sight, he directed his attention to Alice, who was looking at him wide-eyed with both her hands gently grasping his forearm, and then Renee and Esme, who had expressions of worry and determination on their faces.

He moved so that he had his hand cupped around the bent elbows of Alice and Esme, who flanked Renee. Taking a moment to look each woman reassuringly in the eye, he spoke. "There are some things we need to talk about. Bella hadn't wanted to—"

Alice smiled at him as she wrapped her free arm around Renee's waist. "Does this have to do with you being Aengus, of the legends you've been telling us? And your mother being Boann?"

"Bella told you?"

"I guessed. She'd just kinda confirmed it before I went to get our tea."

"I knew it!" Renee half-whispered. Louder, she asked, "So where is my daughter now?"

Edward grimaced. "I'm not sure. There was a lot of magic used to convince Alice and the other patrons—and me, from across the street—that nothing untoward was happening. Mother and Brigid are here to help us find her." He locked eyes with Renee. The woman looked as though she were just this side of a panic attack. Setting aside his own rage and fear for a moment, Edward placed his hands on Renee's shoulders. "I'll explain," he told her. "And we will get her back."


	13. Chapter 13

Brigid and Boann walked around and in the café, using their senses to tease out as much information as they could from the residual magic, far more than Edward could in his human form. While they learned more about Bella's abduction, he ran through a mental list of all the things he was going to do to whomever it was that responsible for her loss. Disembowelment and evisceration were at the top of his list. Long, painful, evisceration, using magic to prolong his foe's life.

He was jerked out of his ruminations of revenge by his mother's fury. It swept over him, throwing him off kilter and shocking him to his core. Empathy was not one of his gifts. For him to feel his mother's emotions, she must be at the threshold of control. Given how overwhelming her anger and rage were, she was about the take out anyone or anything that stood against them.

Brigid and Edward turned to face the angry river goddess at the same time. He saw the surprise, then grim recognition in his sister's expression, and a moment later he knew that his face mirrored hers. Through his sister and mother he could feel the magic better, could recognize what had been tickling at his brain initially.

Formorian magic.

His own rage rushed through him, burning away and pushing out the feelings he'd picked up from Boann. They were gone, driven off the island and back into the sea. How dare ones such as they touch his heart. Evisceration was too good. He'd peel the skin from their bodies while they were still alive.

"How?" He snarled in their native tongue, the use of English for the benefit of Bella's family forgotten. "They were driven out!"

His sister's face was grim, and he could see by her expression that she was as furious as he and Boann were, but, to her credit, she had not allowed it to overtake her as they had. She answered him in the language of the Tuatha. "Driven out, Aengus, but not killed off. When Lug drove Balor's eye out through the back of his head, those Formori exposed to it died, which gave us the victory that day. The rest retreated and the island was ours until the Milesians. It seems we were mistaken to forget about them." Her eyes shifted from him to Boann. "Calm yourselves," Brigid instructed. "We have much to do, and you will serve no one if your anger controls you, rather than you controlling it."

Under his sister's glare and reprimand, he felt his mother's rage ebb as she regained control, and he followed her lead. Brigid was right: rage would do them no good now.

The three conferred for a moment, and then Brigid nodded sharply. "I will find out where they might be hiding." She raised an eyebrow at Edward. "Perhaps our father will be of assistance. He is fond of Caér, too. You know he has no love for the Formori."

Edward nodded his agreement. The Dadga, he and Brigid's shared father, would indeed be useful to have help. He grimaced. He hadn't introduced Bella to him, yet, knowing his father's disapproval of their fascination with mortals and their habit of taking on mortal form. Bella's predicament now would only bolster his father's arguments. They would be reminded of this for long millennia to come.

Brigid smirked at his expression. "Father will only heckle you and tell you 'I told you so' for a few thousand years, brother. Worth it, is it not, for his help?"

"Of course it is," he answered. "I just don't look forward to an already smug bastard becoming even more self-satisfied."

His sister affected a thoughtful expression. "I believe in English they have a saying, do they not? The pot calling the kettle black?"

"You should be the patron goddess of humor," he returned dryly. Already his fury was abating. The familiar exchange with his sister helped Edward push his anger aside once more, allowing him to focus on moving forward and finding his heart.

"What is it?" A tremulous voice just to his left asked. He grimaced internally. In his fury, he'd completely forgotten the three mortals standing with them-three of the most important people in Bella's life.

He took a deep breath, and then, carefully modulating his voice in a neutral tone, he answered Renee's question, making sure he used English. "Old enemies. A people that were largely driven out of Ireland thousands of years ago. It is their magic that my mother and sister sense here. One of them laid down the spells used to abduct Bella."

She nodded, seeming to consider his words. "Is that was you were saying, a minute ago? When you were yelling?"

Edward frowned. "Yes. I'm sorry, Renee. I lost my senses for a moment, forgot to use English. These old enemies of ours took Bella, according to the magic residue. Brigid is going to recruit the help of our father, who is among the most powerful of us. While she's doing that, she'll work with him to locate our enemies. Between the two of them, we will shortly narrow down the possible places Bella could be."

He glanced at Boann. "Mother and I are taking you three ladies back to our house. It is heavily warded, so any mischief intended toward you to keep us distracted or to use you as leverage against Bella will be blocked."

"No." Renee said forcefully. "I won't stay behind while my daughter is in danger. I'm helping you!"

Boann turned to Renee, pitching her voice to be its most soothing. "I know you will not want to hear this, Renee, I know as a mother. This involves beings of magic. Gods. You, Esme, and Alice cannot help us against such foes."

Renee's lips were pressed together in a thin line. "You expect us to do nothing? To sit here while my baby girl is out there, kidnapped?" Toward the end, her voice rose up in volume, her panic clear. Edward couldn't blame her; he was close to feeling the same himself.

Esme put her hand on her sister's arm. "Nene, if this were a normal kidnapping, and it was the FBI we were dealing with, or whatever the Irish equivalent is, would you step aside and let them deal with it as they've been trained?"

His almost mother-in-law looked mutinous for a moment, then nodded. "Yes." Edward was sure Renee would say something else, but she kept her mouth closed, her expression telling them all that she was inches from bending over and getting sick.

Esme folded her sister into her arms and raised an eyebrow at Edward. He nodded at her. "We'll get her back, Esme, Renee. We will."

He saw Alice bite her lip. "You have to stay here, too, Alice."

"If I punched you," she asked, "would it hurt?"

Edward blinked at her, nonplussed. After a long moment of wondering where she was going with that question, he answered. "Not at all."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Am I safe in assuming that rescuing Bella probably means people—gods?—will need a good punch?"

"It is likely." Edward felt his lips tug into a small smile, and he decided he loved this little mortal almost as much as he loved his own family. Here she was, just as worried and stressed as he was, and she was making him smile.

"Well what makes you think I'd try to join in fighting the super-powered beings? I'm not suicidal. Just tell me how we can help from here."

On impulse, he reached and lightly touched her cheek. "Thank you," he told her.

Alice nodded, and then smiled a sad little smile. "Really. Tell us what we can do without getting in the way. Mom and I will keep Aunt Renee calm. Or we'll drug her." She peered up at him. "Can you magic up some sedatives? I guarantee my aunt will need them. She's not exactly calm."

Edward nodded thoughtfully. "I believe we can "magic up" something to calm her while you wait-safely-at my and Bella's home." He paused, and asked: "Your flight is meant to leave tomorrow. You'll probably need to reschedule it. Whatever the rebooking fees, I can cover them."

"I don't think I'll tell the men that Bella's been kidnapped. I'll tell them she's sick and we don't want to leave her yet. Don't worry," she added in response to his frown, "I'll make sure Mom and Aunt Renee go along with it. Believe me, the last thing you want here is Uncle Charlie and Emmett getting in the way." She paused. "I'm not sure we'd be able to sell them on the idea of you being a magical creature, your parents being gods, and Bella probably being held in a whole different plane of existence. We're definitely telling them she's sick and we're her nursemaids."

"We'll find her, Alice."

"Of course you will! You're Aengus! And Boann! And Brigid! You'll kick ass. I just have one request."

"Alright."

"Beat the hell out of whoever it is that took my cousin. Break a few bones for me."

"Oh, my dear Alice. I'll do more than just break a few of his bones. Do not worry on that count."

Edward turned to the three women, who were talking quietly, his mother obviously soothing both Renee and Esme. "Mother," he began quietly, "we should take the ladies back home, now. They'll be safe there, and Alice can make some needed phone calls."

xx-xx-xxx

At the home he and Bella shared, Edward crouched before Renee, who was miserably sitting on the sofa next to her sister. "Renee," he began gently, "the three of you need to stay here. Brigid has warded the house. You'll be safe, but I can only guarantee that here. With the three of us gone to find Bella, we'll need to know that you three are ok. That way we can focus on getting her back."

Esme smiled sadly at him. "We understand, Edward. Alice and I are here for Renee, and we will be here to hug and love on Bella when you bring her home." Her eyes were rimmed in red, tear tracks running down her flushed cheeks, but her voice was surprisingly steady. Edward knew she'd be the rock Bella's mother would need.

He stood up to leave as Alice walked into the room with a tray of tea, the soothing aroma of chamomile wafting up from the cups. He put a small vial of slightly luminescent amber liquid on the tray. "This will help with her nerves," he said quietly. "It's one dose. It should be taken with either water or with tea."

He left the three women in the living room, and turned to the door leading to the back yard, where he saw Brigid and Boann speaking. Once out of the humans' sight, he moved inhumanly fast to meet the two goddesses.

As Edward approached, Brigid turned to him. "Aughlish."

"Aughlish. You're sure? That's where she is?"

"Father was sure. He's to meet us soon."

Edward ran through what he remembered of the site. His knowledge was shockingly thin. He knew where it was, the area of modern Ireland called Londonderry. He remembered the stone circles when the pre-Celtic peoples there constructed them, and… "The fortress. The one created when we moved from this world to the sidhe. One was crafted out of sight of the Milesians. I only visited once, though, when it was new. It has been many long years. Who lives there now?"

"It is abandoned. Even if it were only half as sturdy as it was when new, it would be the perfect place for someone trying to amass power and followers quietly in the Otherworld. Nearly all of the Tuatha ignore it." Boann answered as she pulled her hair back into a long, tight braid, which she wound around her head, to keep it out of the way when they went after the Formori. "We'll go to meet The Dagda, and learn what we can about exactly which of our enemies took Cáer. We'll find her, Aengus. They will not win this."

xx-xx-xxx

The man in front of Bella radiated power. She had thought, upon meeting Boann and Brigid, that they were the epitome of harnessed power. She'd been given to understand that in his natural state, when he wasn't pouring so much of himself into maintaining a human form and façade, that her Edward had even more power—though in truth she often had a difficult time reconciling that information with the man she curled around for comfort at night—but the man (god, she corrected herself) before her was _power_. In him, it was primal, whereas in her in-laws it was more refined. _Just the way I would've imagined a Titan to feel,_ she thought. And she shuddered with the implication.

"You are not far off, little Cáer." In spite of herself, her eyebrow arched up in disbelief. If she hadn't been terrified, it would've been a fair imitation of Edward; as it was, she could barely believe she'd question someone who very presence made her feel insignificant. _Stupid_ she chided herself.

He smiled in what she supposed was meant to be an indulgent manner, though it came off as condescending. "Little swan, do not doubt your senses. You equate me to a Titan. You are close. The Greeks had no name for my people; they did not encounter us. The legends your ancestors tell say my people are one-eyed, one-armed, one-legged beings. That we are pillaging sea-farers who were driven out of Ireland and back into the sea by Lug and the Tuatha Dé Danann." He stepped closer to her and placed a long, thick finger under her chin, tipping her head up, up until she could meet his eyes. "Do you know me now, little swan?"

"Fomorian?" She asked in disbelief. There was no way, was there? They'd harassed the other invaders of Ireland, true, some had intermarried with the Tuatha. But their army had been killed when Lug drove Balor's evil eye out the back of his head, the remainder driven off of the island. Hadn't they? And then she remembered Edward telling her that the legends she'd been researching were mostly, sometimes, not always right. So was it really so hard to believe that the legends had gotten the very nature of this race wrong, too? "So if you're like the Titans, you are—"

His eyes flashed. "We are not _like_ anyone or anything, little swan. We are our own. We are the elder gods."

_Right_, she railed internally. _Like the Titans. Just because he's not Greek doesn't mean there aren't similarities there. They were obviously supplanted, like the Titans were by the Olympians…and oh, God. He read my mind earlier. Crap. Crapcrapcrap._

His very large finger tilted her head further back, until the pressure was uncomfortable and her neck was stretched as far as it would go. "Little Cáer. You tread on thin ice. I did not misspeak. We are like no one and no thing. Do not presume knowledge you do not have." His finger pushed her chin up just a hair further, so that she passed from "uncomfortable" into "pain." To her chagrin, she couldn't stop the tears from welling up in her eyes, though she did fight to keep them from pouring out across her temples and into her hairline.

"Sleep." She heard him speak, and almost immediately felt overcome with the urge to close her eyes_._ As her world went dark, Bella couldn't help but feel that she was well and truly fucked.

Xxx-xx-xxx

Bella groaned as she woke up. Her shoulders and her arms ached. What had she been doing to hurt so? And why was she sitting up? She hated sleeping upright. Bella moved to stretch and found the movement truncated when her wrists only budged so far. _What the hell?_ She jiggled her arms and her brain finally caught up with her situation. _Manacles_, she realized. _Manacles?_

Oh, right. Mr. "I'm a Formorian with no name, don't you dare call me a Titan." Surely he was powerful enough that he didn't have to keep her in—she looked up at her bound wrists—wrought iron manacles that looked like they came straight off the set of an old pirate movie. The part of her brain that was set on not panicking wanted to know just who in the Otherworld had made a set of iron manacles. Iron was an anathema to them—she didn't think they could forge or work with it—so where did these come from? _Maybe they took them from humans?_

In an effort to ignore the "oh shit oh shit oh shit" panic-primed part of her brain, she looked around, trying to figure out where she was. Much to her relief, she found that while, yes, chained to a wall with only enough slack to keep her arms from being stretched taut, she wasn't in the clichéd dank and musty cave or dungeon. Really, it looked like a rather fine bed chamber. There were no windows, though since she wasn't in her own world (or plane of existence, whatever the right term was), she supposed windows wouldn't matter. The walls were stone, castle-like, with long tapestries-whose scenes played out almost like a silent movie, playing through their story then resetting and starting again-and carved ceilings that she thought must depict stories or histories. The colors were brilliant, beyond life. Technicolor plus ten, just like her visit to the Otherworld with Aengus during the solstice celebrations.

Off to her left was a large bed with intricately carved feet, side rails, and posts. Pillows were piled high, and it looked the epitome of sumptuous. The bedclothes, she thought, looked really comfortable. Why did she have to be chained to a cold stone wall when there was a comfy bed _right there_?

No, she corrected herself. Being chained to the bed would indicate even worse things than simply being kidnapped. Being chained to the cold hard wall? Just fine. She could make do with that.

Bella stood up as much as her restraints allowed, then did a mangled sort of jig to keep herself from getting terribly stiff. She examined the iron bands around her wrists as best she could, bending this way and that, pulling her arms in vain against them. She spent a few minutes wishing she had her very own Q so that she had awesome gadgets with which she could escape impossible situations. A few more minutes were lost to lamenting the fact that she was not, alas, James Bond or one of his girls, so no fantastic gadgetry for her. Perhaps, though, with Edward on her side, she might have one of those epic rescues. She'd never pictured herself as a damsel in distress, but if Edward rescuing her meant that, she'd own the title, and proudly. She wanted out.

Not entirely sure she wanted attention, but wanting something to do other than just sit and stew, she called out: "Hellllooooo! Anyone out there? I'm hungry!" There was no indication that she was heard or that anyone was even aware of her existence.

Bella slumped to the lush carpet, at a loss of what to do. "Being prisoner sucks," she informed the room at large.

Some indeterminable time later, more wiggling around, and some talking to an empty room, Bella had to pee. They don't, she thought, talk about the heroes or heroines needing to heed the call of nature in the myths. She shifted her weight from ass cheek to ass cheek to relieve the pressure on her legs and her bladder.

"Sengann directed that you have food brought to you."

Bella looked up to find the owner of the voice. Who she saw—what she saw—fit nowhere in her frame of reference. If it had a gender, she was guessing male. As far as she could tell, though, it was androgynous. A fine-boned body that was nonetheless wrapped in corded muscle; its arms were a longer than a human's, its eyes were huge and set on the sides of the head, reminding her of a deer. The creature's skin was almost iridescent, shimmering a kaleidoscope of colors as it caught the light in the room.

"Sengann?"

"You spent time with him earlier. Surely you did not forget already?"

"So he does have a name. Sengann." Bella rolled that around in her memory, trying to figure out why it sounded familiar.

She eyed the tray it/he was holding. Two containers (soup bowl and mug) and a spoon. She was hungry, true, but folklore and fairy tales were rife with poor humans adversely affected by food from the Otherworld, so she didn't think she'd be partaking.

"May I use the ladies room?" She asked her visitor.

"Ladies room?" Its eyes blinked and she twitched, not expecting the double eyelids. _Lizard_, her surprised brain supplied. Lizards blink like that. Creepy, yet cool.

Bella blushed. "I need to pee." When the expression she thought meant confusion didn't change, she started to explain, then stopped. Was clinical the way to go? 'Pee' was pretty clear, she thought, but apparently not clear enough. "Urinate," she finally said. "Expel bodily wastes? You guys do that here in the Otherworld, too, right?"

It blinked again, then nodded in assent. "This way, mortal-who-is-more. The room you require is not far."

She shook her arms, rattling the iron bands around her wrists, along with the chains running from them to the wall. "I can't follow you."

It made a negligent gesture, and her wrists were free. _Sweet!_ Her brain rejoiced. _Freedom!_ Almost as soon as her mind supplied the second word her wrists were bound again, this time with intricately woven bronze bracelets with a delicate-looking set of chains running from her to her new not-friend.

Already knowing it was futile, she gave them an experimental tug. Nothing gave, and she interpreted the expression on her escort's face as 'you were expecting something different?'

_Think_, she told herself. _This might be your only chance to get out. _Dutiful prisoner that she was, she followed the pretty Otherworld creature to the room to which it gestured. She held up her bound wrists in question, and it gestured again.

"The chains aren't long enough for me to go in there without you."

It did the creepy eye blink again, but then nothing.

Bella groaned. She was in a B movie. A terrible movie in which creepy cool pretty almost-guys were chained to her, and apparently set on following her into the bathroom. All she wanted to do was pee! Well, pee first. Get free second. According to her bladder, those were her priorities.

xxx-xx-xxx

Of those two priorities, Bella was only able to accomplish one. She relieved herself under the watchful presence of her escort and guard, and was returned to her room. Hher guard waved its hands, and she was once again chained by iron to the room's wall. _Fuck_, she thought.

The creature tilted its head at her. "Sengann will send for you when he is ready." It turned, then, and left the room without so much as a glance back when she began yelling at it to wait.

She spent much the day (night? She wondered-she couldn't tell) working out a way to get out. The first and most obvious task was to stop being stuck to the wall.

Bella tugged at her manacles, tried vainly to wiggle her hands through the cuffs. All she got for her efforts were chaffed, bloody wrists and some colorful bruising. Remembering tricks from movies, she tried to dislocate her thumb to make her hand small enough to slip through, but found out the hard way that the manacles were just too snug around her wrists for it to work. She wondered how much time she'd lost because she'd passed out from the pain.

In the end, she was chained to the wall, getting chilly as the room cooled down, her skin felt like it was beginning to stick to the iron bands as her body tried to heal the damage she'd done, and her left hand and thumb were ugly and swollen. _Brilliant. I'm even worse off than I was before._


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A friendly reminder that I'm playing fast-and-loose with Irish mythology. Sengann doesn't show up so often in the myths, so I'm kiiiinda inflating his importance.

Bella woke to her guard's voice and his long-fingered hand jostling her shoulder. She groaned in response, the waves of pain from her swollen, bruised, left hand and wrist reminding her of her vain attempts at gaining her freedom the day (evening?) before. Shortly she noticed, too, the ache and soreness in her arms and shoulders from being chained to the wall in her attractive prison.

"Sengann wishes to see you," it said when she opened her eyes.

_Breakfast_, she thought with hope. Then, remembering her earlier determination not to eat food from the Otherworld in case it would be bad for her, she decided to refocus on her pulsing hand, arms, and shoulders. Better to be in pain than to be hungry. For now, at least.

She remained silent as the manacles and chains that bound her to the wall were exchanged for the intricate bronze bracelets and chains that bound her to her guard. Though focusing on her aches and pains helped her ignore her hunger, it also distracted her from thinking of escape: though based on her embarrassing trip to the bathroom yesterday, there really wasn't a way to escape while it changed her bonds anyway.

It tugged on her chains, bringing Bella to her feet. She stumbled behind it, not awake enough yet to counter her natural clumsiness, her toes catching on the worn stone floor of the hallway. In between keeping herself on her feet, she kept an eye on where her guard was taking her, hoping she'd be able to use what she observed to her advantage later.

Her guard took her to the large hall where she'd first seen her captor. This time, she took a moment to look around, noticing where there were doors—three on each side, in addition to the one on the end where she'd been led through—and the windows in the ceiling, easily thirty feet high, that let in pale sunlight. It was a beautiful room, ornate, and far beyond the beauty of anything she'd seen in the human world, but for all the physical beauty, it was a cold and forbidding place; she wouldn't want to stay here for long.

Sengann was sitting on the dais toward the back of the long audience hall, looking completely comfortable and annoyingly smug in an elaborately carved chair that looked like it wanted to be a throne, though it lacked some innate quality that would've made her call it one. To her, it was just an ornate marble chair. Kind of obnoxious, really.

At the foot of the dais, speaking quietly with Sengann, was another tall man, or, she realized, another Fomorian. He was tall, nearly as tall as Sengann, and blond, with long hair that reached mid-back, accented by the occasional braid. He was no Edward, but she thought, looks-wise, he'd match the overly elaborate throne-chair thing better than the dowdy Sengann.

"You would judge me and my furnishings, child?" Sengann's voice rumbled from him and seemed to fill the entire large space. He made a small gesture to the other Fomorian, who strode to one of the side doors and disappeared on the other side, leaving Bella nearly alone with the would-be ruler. Her only company was her guard, who had stayed at the hall's entry doors after unchaining her for her audience. The ornate bronze remained around her wrists, unwanted and uncomfortable adornment.

"I did like the furnishings in my cell. Very lush. Whoever left you with such a soft room must've been at least middle management." She was pretty sure she was going to regret smarting off to him, but to her surprise, he laughed.

"I understand Aengus' fascination with you now. When first I heard your situation, I did not understand why he simply did not end your life and return you to your less vulnerable form. As a human, you are entertaining. I might have kept you alive in his place as well." Sengann's face twisted into what Bella thought was meant to be a smile. "Amusing as you are, I will enjoy draining your power from you, little swan. Tomorrow will be an auspicious day."

"I don't understand," Bella said, looking up at the tall Fomorian seated before her.

"You have all that power locked up in such a frail mortal body, little Caér, and you do not know why I've taken you?" Sengann looked down his long nose at her, pitch black eyes seeming to suck her in. "You agreed to have the entirety of your knowledge and power buried under this mortal façade—however 'real' Isabella Swan is—so that when you return to being Caér you will have a greater appreciation of the mortals you and your husband are so fascinated with. You are a magical creature, young swan, half Tuatha, half shapeshifter. How can you ask _why_?"

"You want to use Caér's power to attack Aengus." Bella hated the despondence that bled through, but couldn't keep it from her voice. She was going to be used as a weapon against the love of her life. Lives.

Sengann laughed, managing to sound both indulgent and malicious. The hairs on the back of Bella's neck rose in response.

"So self-centered, to think only of your mate. You think too small, little one. Yes, Aengus will be a casualty, but he is not the mark. As it stands now, one-on-one, I am a match for the Dagda Mor, his father, not that you remember him as you are now. With the power I will gain with your capture, I will be able to surpass him."

Abruptly, Bella was pissed. "So you kill my father-in-law. You think that their-_my_-people will just roll over and let you rule them? That the Otherworld will be your playground?" She'd caught the arrogance and power as she'd been living with Edward, had seen it leashed and buried under layers of civility in Boann and Brigid, but she hadn't realized the arrogance and pig-headedness of the gods before now. She didn't know if her love and his family had tamped down on it for her benefit, or if they simply didn't give in to those tendencies, but she liked to think that her deity in-laws were nothing like this pompous, greedy ass. She cringed internally. The pompous, greedy ass who could read her thoughts. _Fuck._

Sengann's approximation of a smile turned cruel. "Leave me. You will have time to think on the end of your mortal and immortal lives. Were your last words to your husband and family kind ones?" His voice turned mocking. "Did you tell them you loved them?" He gestured at her mangled hand. "Escaping is futile, child. You could not escape those manacles in your true form; you have no hope of doing so in this one."

The large Fomorian turned his attention to one of the side doors, effectively dismissing her. She did not move, though, and since her strange-looking guard was far to the back, she had some time to wait for him to come fetch her from the foot of the dais.

"Cíocal!" Sengann's voice echoed off the walls of the mostly empty hall, and his bellow caused Bella's ears to ring. Everything about him was over-sized, it seemed. His ego, his build, his voice. She wanted back into the real world, now. This was too many kinds of horrible.

The same Fomorian Sengann had been speaking with upon her arrival walked out of one of the doors to the right, his long stride eating up the distance to the dais. His eyes flicked over Bella, and she felt her skin crawl. Sengann's smug arrogance was ten times better than this one, Cíocal's, appraisal. He was the walking definition of creepy. It was even worse that his creepiness was wrapped up in an attractive package. At any other time, Bella would have called the tall blond handsome. After being under his appraisal for only a few seconds, though, she wanted only to hop in a bath and scrub herself clean.

She was almost grateful when she felt the tug on her manacles and realized that her guard was reattaching her chains. It meant breaking eye contact with the Very Creepy One (Cíocal, she reminded herself), and gave her something else to look at. As her guard walked her away from the two Fomorians, she thought she heard Sengann say something to his henchman about "preparing," and she felt a shiver work its way down her back. She was pretty sure he would be prepping for her execution the next night.

She watched the path her guard took as it led her back to her room. She really wasn't far from the main chamber at all, though what she really wanted to know was how far from the exit she was, and how difficult it would be to get out. She had no intention of being sacrificed for some dispossessed god's power play. She needed to warn Edward that his father was in danger.

xx-xx-xx

Edward went back inside, briefly, to tell Alice, Renee, and Esme that he was leaving with his sister and mother. "Don't forget," he said quietly to Alice, "the three of you need to stay here, in the protection of the wards."

"We won't get in your way. Go kick ass, bring my cousin back." She pasted on a thin smile. "I want to give her hell about not telling me she was shacking up with a god."

He nodded grimly. "I will see that you are able to do so." As a good-bye, he briefly cupped her cheek with his hand, and then he was out the door and in the company of Brigid and Boann. "Where are we meeting Father?" He asked.

"_Brú na Bóinne_. I'll take you." Brigid reached out to firmly grasp his upper arm, and before he could reply, she bent the air around them just _so_, taking them to the Otherworld side of the ancient site.

Boann appeared seconds after they did, and the three of them walked to a part of the _Brú_ that did not exist in the human world. This was the long-time home of Aengus and Cáer, and Edward led the way to the central hall, which had been used, in ages past, as a throne room. He'd let go of that particular pretention some time ago, but he knew it would be where his father would wait for them. The Dagda never let anyone forget where they stood in relation to him.

When they entered the central hall, his father was lounging in a huge overstuffed wingback chair that looked like it had come straight out of a Victorian library, then been supersized for his father's large frame. Knowing the Dagda, it had been. His huge club leaned against the side of the chair, handle within easy reach. Edward almost started laughing when he saw what his father was wearing. Bella called it the "generation x guy uniform:" jeans, Sketchers, and an untucked button-down shirt over a t-shirt.

"When did you start following modern fashion, Father?" Edward knew he didn't have much room to talk, given that he was still wearing the clothes he'd had on to go shopping with the women. But then, Edward wasn't in his god form, nor was he living in the Otherworld.

"It's all because of a woman, of course. Beautiful lass in Belfast. Broad hips, long legs, eyes the color of the sea. She insisted on dressing me."

Edward rolled his eyes, then mentally rolled them again at the habit he'd picked up from Bella. It irritated him that the other god would be so cavalier about discussing his conquests in front of Boann, even if the two hadn't shared a bed or been in any way involved for many millennia.

The Tuatha leader smirked at his son before he lazily stood up, appearing completely unconcerned with Edward's obvious irritation. "Sengann," the Dagda said, "took little human Cáer to Aughlish." He looked at the three standing before him. "I trust I do not need to explain what happens in two night's time."

"The alignment," Boann nearly whispered. "He would kill her body to take and drain her spirit's power during the alignment." She turned so that both gods were in her line of sight, though she focused on Edward. "At such a time, the power he would pull from her spirit would be amplified." Her focus shifted to her one-time lover. "It seems he would replace you as ruler."

His lips twisted in derision. "As if it were that easy. Even if he were to defeat me, our people would never accept him." The Dagda patted his club absently as he spoke. "To hope to replace me, he would need to displace all our people as rulers of the Otherworld. He would need an army for that."

"There have ever been dissidents in the Otherworld, father. It is not impossible that he's recruited and joined those who were otherwise too weak to fight us."

Brigid sounded grim, and Edward had to agree. For him, this was primarily about rescuing his wife from losing not only her mortal life, but losing her very soul. Secondarily, though, and rising in importance, was the threat to their people. If he had to choose between Cáer and the Tuatha, what would he choose? He wasn't sure. Without Cáer to spend eternity with, he wouldn't want to live; would he then care enough about his people to continue living and fight for them?

"When we cut off the head of the dragon," their father said, "the body may kick for a time out of reflex, but it will die. The key is to eliminate the head." He picked up his massive club and swung it up over his shoulder, casually resting it there, with his hand lightly gripping the narrow end. "I have set up maps in the war room. Come."

Edward, Brigid, and Boann followed the tall Tuatha into an adjacent chamber, and arranged themselves around a huge obsidian table. It was covered in maps and buildings plans, which Edward hesitantly recognized as the Otherworld stronghold of Aughlish. "These are current?" He met his father's eyes over the table and raised an eyebrow in question.

"They are," the Dagda answered.

"Tell me how you propose to get us in to this fortress, then. I want to know how many guards and where they're posted. What type of beings they are, where he might be keeping Bella."

His father nodded and pointed to different points on the map. "There are small garrisons here, here, and here. There is a tunnel that runs under the garrison on the north side..."

xx-xx-xx

They drew closer to her room-slash-cell, and Bella decided she needed to get away. She knew already that she couldn't break away from the chains that bound her to the wall there, so her only chance would be to get away from her strange looking guard, while secured with the lighter chains.

She let herself fall a little bit behind it so she could watch its grip on the fine, deceptively fragile-looking chains that ran from her manacles to its hands. It didn't look like it had them in a firm grip, but she remembered from her experimental tugs the last time it had led her out that it wasn't so easy to get away from.

Bella wasn't quite sure how to get out of this place if she managed to ditch her guard, but she figured that the first order of business would be get free, then she could find her way out. She hoped it wouldn't be all that difficult, and that the fortress wasn't at the heart of a labyrinth or something frustrating.

What had she learned in those long-ago self defense and karate classes? Joints were weak points. She moved her focus from the grip of the guard's hands on her chains to its body. It wore studded leather armor and what looked like homespun wool, so nothing super durable. She thought, watching it walk, that if she could kick in the back of its knee, she could throw it off balance and make her escape. That looked like the least protected part of its body, and she realized that as slim as her chances were, she had to take what she could get.

Moving closer to her guard, she waited until they were close to her room, and out of sight of the other guards that sometimes patrolled, and then she darted forward and slammed her foot into the back of its right knee. As she'd hoped, it went down, but to her disgust, its grip on her chains never altered; when her guard toppled forward, it dragged her with it.

Frantically, she got to her feet and put all of her body weight into tugging at the chains. This was it. If she couldn't get free now, she wasn't going to have another chance, and she needed to warn Edward and his father. Seeing that pulling wasn't working, and that the lizard-like creature's hand was only tightening, she chanced moving in closer and drew her foot back to kick it in the head. It shocked her by twisting so that her chains stayed firmly in one hand and it caught her swinging foot with the other.

Expression was hard to read on its non-human face, but Bella thought it looked annoyed. It squeezed her foot, and she gasped in pain. It felt like the bones were close to breaking. She hopped on her other foot, trying to break its grasp, but it only pulled on her chains and foot, bringing her to the ground, where she bounced awkwardly. Pain flared up from her foot and ankle and Bella realized that she had, at the very least, sprained her ankle, if not broken the bones in her foot.

Her guard picked her up under one arm with no apparent effort, not even limping from her kick to the knee, and carried her, yelling and thrashing as much as possible, into her room, where it dropped her on the floor by the wall and roughly chained her to it. Once it had her locked in, it spared her not another glance, and strode out of her room, slamming the door shut behind it. She heard the lock turning, and then there was nothing but dark and silence.

xx-xx-xx

There were sounds of fighting outside of her room. Bella shook her head groggily, and wondered how long she'd been out of it. By the ache in her arms from where she'd sagged against the wall, pulling her shoulders taut in the manacles, she guessed it had been quite a while. She didn't even remember falling asleep, but with how much her ankle and foot throbbed, she thought maybe she'd just passed out. The guard had not been gentle with her hand, swollen and bloody from her previous escape attempt, or her new injuries when it had chained her to the wall.

Passing out was totally acceptable, she decided. It helped pass the time. The noises outside her room got louder, and then her door burst open in an explosion of light and sound. She squeezed her eyes shut against the sudden intrusion of light. When she opened them again she almost started crying in happiness. There were Brigid and Boann, with several large, armed men she assumed were their own guards or soldiers. The men went outside, and the two goddesses crossed the room to Bella.

Boann reached Bella first, and reached for her bonds. She flinched back, though, when she saw that they were made of iron. Frowning, she gestured to Brigid. "Help them keep the hallway clear for us. I will free Cáer."

Brigid nodded sharply, crossing back to the doorway, where Bella saw her talking with one of their men. Bella smiled weakly at Boann. "A rescue mission?"

Her mother-in-law smiled, though it was tight. "Just so. For us, rescue, for The Dagda Mor, however, it is a... I believe you would call it a smack down. He will not suffer a rebellion. He and Aengus are ensuring that this does not happen again. Sengann will not survive this day." As she spoke, she was reached into her pockets and came out with a bolt cutter.

"You have a bolt cutter in your pocket? That's-that's-I can't believe you have a bolt cutter!" Bella squinted her eyes at Boann. "Where did you fit it? Your pockets are small."

The river goddess winked as she broke one of the chains close to where it connected to her manacle. "I believe there is a character from a children's story named Mary Poppins?"

Bella blinked uncomprehendingly at Boann. "Yes?" she answered hesitantly, not sure of where the other woman was going with that thought.

"My pockets are as to me as her bag is to her. Bottomless." She accented her answer by cutting the other chain, leaving Bella free to move, even if she still had the hated iron bracelets around her wrists. "We must leave," Boann told her. She gently put her arm around Bella's waist, and Bella leaned on the taller woman as they walked to the door. She was grateful for the rescue, but she couldn't leave with them. She had to know where Edward was.

They drew even to the door, and Bella threw her arms around the tall river goddess in gratitude. She'd been certain she was about to die...and that Cáer, in turn, had been on the threshold of capture.

"Thank you," she gasped out, "thank you so much." She let go of Boann and in turn hugged Brigid. "Where's Edward?"

She looked between the two goddesses. "Edward?" She asked again, her voice quavering.

"Hunting Sengann with our father," Brigid answered. "We came here to ensure your safety; father and Edward went after Sengann."

"The main chamber," Bella breathed out. She didn't wait to see the goddess' agreement. She knew she was right. She turned on her heel and stumbled into an awkward run, skirting past the soldiers, who were paying more attention to the fortress's advancing guards than the little injured human, and fighting her unused legs and damaged ankle to do as she commanded and move quickly.

"Bella!" Called one of the goddesses, but she couldn't spare a moment to look back. She only knew that she had to find Edward. From behind her she heard the sounds of fighting, and she assumed that Sengann's men had found Boann and Brigid. She sent out a silent prayer for their safety as she stumbled forward.

Her legs finally gave into her commands to _move_ when she reached the hallway cross section, causing her to lose her balance. She crashed into the hall wall, causing her to yelp in pain when she caught her weight with her still-swollen hand. She'd been unconscious the first time she had been brought to her room, but the second time, when Sengann had been _so_ gracious in allowing her time to prepare not only for her mortal death but for the permanent demise of Cáer, she had been completely aware of her surroundings when she had brought her back to her room. Sengann had clearly not worried about her escaping, manacled and chained to her guard as she was (given her failed escape attempt, that was understandable). It wasn't far to the central chamber; only one more turn off this hall.

Regaining her balance, she took off at the fastest limping run that she could. She had to reach Edward.

Skidding into the central chamber where Sengann had earlier revealed himself to her, she stopped abruptly. At the top of the dais she saw Sengann held up off the ground by an enormous man she hoped was the Dagda. The Fomorian who had taken her prisoner looked like he was being choked to death, and she paused for a short moment to enjoy the thought of him no longer being able to hurt them.

Through the side door Cíocal had earlier come from, she saw Edward there, encased in a sickly brown-yellow light, writhing on the ground under the power directed at him by Cíocal. With only the thought of distracting the Fomorian from his attack on Edward, she hurried to the side room, and once there, threw herself bodily at the tall blond, and in so doing, took the blast of his power to her chest.

Bella Swan, Cáer Ibormeith, knew immense pain. It burned through her body, set her skin on fire, and raced along her nervous system so that within seconds even her primary thought of 'Edward!' had retreated under the onslaught of pain. Before she completely succumbed to unconsciousness, she thought she heard her name being called out, but she couldn't focus, couldn't respond, could do nothing but scream.

xxx-xxx-xxx

Edward felt the fire retreat, and forced his battered and broken body to its feet so that he could face Cíocal once more. To his horror, he saw why the pain had stopped; his Bella, his heart, had taken his place as the focus of Cíocal 's attack. Before he had a chance to react, she was surrounded by the same ugly brown-yellow light he himself had just been freed from, and then her body was arched unnaturally against the stone floor with only her head, feet, and hands touching the stone. Her scream of pain rebounded through the room and Edward was pushed into action. With a snarl and roar, he launched himself at their attacker. No one who harmed his heart would be permitted to live.

The sounds of a fight drifted into the room, and a quick expansion of his senses confirmed that it was his mother and sister as they closed in on the Dagda's place in the main chamber. They could take care of themselves; now he was concerned only about the petite brunette whose rigid body, contorted face, and screams gave evidence to the pain Cíocal was inflicting.

He tackled Cíocal to the ground, ending his attack on Bella, who nonetheless remained screaming. He wanted nothing more than to beat the Fomorian to a bloody pulp, release all his anger onto it, but went instead for efficiency so that he could turn his attention to his Bella, his Cáer. Straddling the larger man, he used his knees to pin his upper arms to the floor while he quickly, faster than a human eye could have followed, drove his fist into the Fomorian's throat, grabbed hold of spine and soft tissue, and pulled. Dropping the bloody mess onto the floor, he pivoted and leapt toward his Bella, whose screams had died the moment he'd put his hand into the other being's neck.

_No. Nononono_. He wasn't yet to her body when saw-and heard-that her heart wasn't beating and she wasn't breathing. Edward made it to her side and dropped to his knees. He flashed through memory after memory of Bella taking first aid and CPR classes in recent years, trying to remember the technique to restart someone's heart. There it was: chest compressions and breathing. Frantically, he tilted her head back, pinched her nose, and breathed into her mouth. _Please_ he begged silently. _Not her._

He followed the instructions he remembered Bella taking to heart: two breaths, thirty compressions, two breaths, thirty compressions. Edward could _feel_ the life fading from the body of his love. Two minutes and thirty-four seconds into the CPR cycle, he saw the spirit of Cáer leave Bella's body. She hovered over the body for the barest of moments, and he felt the caress of her spirit against his cheek. Then she was gone, her spirit spinning out to its rightful place in the Otherworld.

Edward sagged, resting his head on Bella's still warm chest. He'd lost. Sengann, while no longer a threat to anyone, had succeeded in separating Cáer's spirit from Bella. He was only grateful that the Fomorian had not been able to trap or use her spirit.

He no longer had need to force himself to blend as human, to maintain that form for decades so that he could accompany Cáer-as-Bella as she lived her mortal life, so he let the mortal façade fall away, feeling it melt from him as he retook his true form and reassumed his identity as Aengus.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A hat tip to pogurl for being a brilliant beta and cheerleader. Thanks to the twilightcounsel and HMonster for hosting the WCs that got this chapter finished.

Moments after Aengus shed his human façade and reassumed his natural form, the Dagda, Brigid, and Boann came into the room where he stood with Bella’s empty body. “Sengann is dead,” his father said, “the rebels he gathered dispersed or killed.” The Dagda crossed the room and placed his hand on Aengus’ shoulder. His voice, normally boisterous, was quiet. “It is good to see you in your true form, son, though I am not happy for the reason.” He shifted his grip on his huge cudgel, bringing Aengus’ attention to it. “I can bring her back to life, if you wish it. All it requires is a touch.”

Aengus frowned. “No, though I thank you for your offer. Cáer is in her natural form again; I can feel her already in the _Brú_. I would not have you force her back into a mortal shell. Bella is dead. I failed her family.” He covered his face with his hand and dragged it slowly down. The word of Aengus was gold; if he said a thing, if he made a promise, he held to it. It was the first time he had failed to do so.

He tilted his head and smiled a half-hearted smile as he felt Cáer’s presence grow closer. “She is on her way,” he told his family. She must have started toward Aughlish as soon as she re-appeared in their home following Bella’s death.

His father nodded, and then gestured toward the corpses of Bella and Cíocal. With the flick of his hand, Cíocal’s body disappeared and Bella’s was clean and free of any signs of injury. He’d closed her eyes and folded her hands over her middle. “I think she deserves a proper funeral,” the Dagda said quietly.

“She does,” Aengus agreed, “though her family should be present for it. They would want to say good bye to her.” He cringed internally. Breaking the hearts of Alice, Renee, and Esme was not something he wanted to do. He’d much prefer being targeted by that awful magic of Cíocal’s again.

“Her family won’t have to say good bye to Bella.” Cáer’s voice rang out across the room. “I am Bella, and Bella is me, and in this way she has not died. They shouldn’t have to mourn her.”

“I told them I would return their daughter, niece, cousin to them. I cannot do that. The word of Aengus is no longer reliable.” As he spoke, he walked toward his wife, holding his arms open for her.

Cáer frowned and shook her head even as she stepped into his embrace. “The word of Aengus is still good. They will not have to lose her. I can be Bella—I _am_ Bella—just as you have been Edward these months.”

Before Aengus could answer, Boann walked to them, and touched Cáer’s head tenderly. “It is good to see you again, in your proper form.” She looked between her son and daughter-in-law. “When you decide how you want to honor Bella in death, tell us. We will leave you to decide.”

Aengus and Cáer nodded their agreement, and said good bye, temporarily, to Brigid, Boann, and the Dagda, who kissed Cáer on the temple before he left.

Arms wrapped around his wife, chin resting on the crown of her head, Aengus looked at the chamber they were standing in and to the body she had inhabited for thirty years. The sight made him sick to his stomach, tempered only by the fact that Cáer was in his arms. “I have no wish to stay here,” he told her. He pulled her in as tight as he could, relishing the feel of her against him after so long of having gone without.

He felt her head move as she nodded. “We should go back to the _Brú_, and bring Isabella. No matter what we decide, none of us should stay here any longer. It is not a good place.”

“Yes,” Aengus agreed. He bent the air around them, compressing space in the Otherworld, and then they, with the empty body of Cáer’s human self, were back home at _Brú na Bóinne_.

Cáer slipped out of his embrace and walked to Bella’s body. She knelt next to it, and thought for a moment, then slowly brought her hand, hovering over her former body, over the length of Bella, changing the clothing from the mundane slacks and blouse she’d been wearing to the full regalia of the wife of Aengus, scrolling embroidery of gold and bronze decorating the hems of the finely woven wool tunic and skirt. Her hair was braided and wound around the crown of her head, punctuated with gold pins in the shape of oak leaves. Up in this way, it looked rather like a crown. Cáer’s personal symbol, a swan with its neck gracefully tucked against its body, took the form of a large, detailed gold pendant, which she placed upon Bella’s chest. She looked up at Aengus. “No matter our decision, she should wear this, I think. It is fitting for your wife.”

It broke his heart to see her dressed thusly, and it reminded him of how close he’d come to losing his wife permanently. “Yes.” His voice was hoarse, and he paused. “She wanted to be cremated.” Renee was going to fall apart. How could he tell them? He closed his eyes against the sight before him. However glad he was to be back in his natural form, to have his Cáer with him, whole, he’d cherished her as Bella, and he would miss the beautiful mortal woman.

“I remember.” Cáer stood and slipped her arm around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder. “It fits with our customs, as well. We can place her ashes in an appropriately decorated urn, and bury her here at the Brú.”

“At the spot where we met again,” Aengus said, “along the Boyne.”

“So you agree, then?”

“I only agree that this is where her remains should stay, not that we should pass you off as her.”

Cáer nodded against his shoulder. “I will not pressure you, my husband. I will only explain to you why I think this the best course of action, and why I believe you did not break your word to the mortals you’ve grown to love so.”

xx-xx-xx

Cáer materialized a large, overstuffed chair in the room Aengus had transported them to, and guided her husband to sit in it so that she could arrange herself on his lap, her head against his chest.

“I have become quite fond of the Swan family, as I know you have. Bella had only her own memories, with a small smattering of mine to go on. I have all of both our memories. All of her memories, Aengus. I appreciate her greatly. Young Isabella was a lovely mortal caught up in the supernatural because of our decisions. You were correct when you told her that while my spirit was perhaps an influence on her, she was her own person, and one who would no doubt change me, though I am immortal and do not change readily. She has done just that. I seem to have adopted some of her feelings on different subjects. I have that ridiculous song, ‘Pencil Thin Mustache’ in my head.” Cáer smiled, a little sadly. “I have the most curious desire to write romance novels.”

Aengus groaned, but it was good-naturedly. Cáer let herself relax. “I mean to finish the book she was writing, Aengus. She was retelling our story, telling her own. It should be published. She was working on it until her family’s visit; I know just how she wanted it to work. It should be completed, don’t you think my love? Her characters deserve a happily ever after.”

“By living a life of deception? I don’t like the idea of lying to them for decades, possibly the remainder of their lives. I care for them too much for that.” His nose wrinkled as though smelling something unpleasant. “Now that I do not have to maintain the human façade for Bella to interact with, I would prefer not to.” He met her eyes and held them, and Cáer remembered seeing him in person that first time, when he’d come to Loch Bél Dracon to find her. Aengus continued. “Maintaining a human body in this manner requires immense amounts of energy, my heart. It would not be easy for someone of your power.”

Cáer nodded thoughtfully. “I do not think of it as being deceptive; Bella is an aspect of me. I have her memories, and her preferences have bled over to me. I may not love Renee as I loved my own mother, but I cherish her as I might have cherished a step-mother, and as I cherish yours. Charlie is as dear as a step-father. Alice and Emmett I love without reservation, and the extended family I have deep affection for. With Bella and Edward here in Eire, it will be easier to maintain the illusion. Unless we are communicating directly, in person or over the telephone, I would not have to maintain the human façade of Bella. With judicious use of magic, we could live as Cáer and Aengus most of the time, and as Edward and Bella only as necessary. The mobile phones of our human life can be altered to work in the Otherworld, and we can find a way to have regular access to computers and other equipment as needed.” She leaned into him. “I would spare them the pain of losing a family member, my love. I know that we can.”

She could see her husband considering her ideas, flipping through the scenarios as they presented themselves in his mind, mulling over the strengths and weaknesses of the idea. “Alice will not believe it for long,” he said.

Cáer sniffed. “Alice will take one look at me and know that her cousin is not the same upon her return as she was before she was taken in the café. She _is_ gifted. When I explain, however, that Bella and Cáer’s memories and personalities have merged, I hope that she will accept the change peaceably.”

“You will have her think it is Bella’s personality that is dominant in that merge?” He still sounded uncomfortable, but she could tell his desire to protect the family was outweighing his misgivings.

“If that is what she assumes, if it is what makes this change easiest for her, I will not dissuade her. If she asks me flat-out which of us is dominant after the merge, I will not lie.” Cáer, through her memories of being Bella, was pretty sure this is what would end up happening, and she meant what she said. If Alice Cullen asked how the personalities of the two women balanced out after such a merge, Cáer would tell her that she was mostly Cáer, now, though a Cáer changed by having lived not just as a mortal, but as _Bella_, and had all of Bella's memories. She understood Aengus' misgivings about this course of action; Bella would have—and in a strange way _did_ have—the same reservations. Bella's influence on her was immeasurable, and she was Bella and Bella was she, and in the end, it did not feel at all like a deception to the immortal shape shifter. Bella had not died, but changed.

She shifted herself around so that she could face him, reading his expression as well as listening to the inflection of his voice. “It is settled then? We will cremate her—my—body as she wished, and according to our traditions, and bury her remains near the bank of the Boyne, where she picked you out among the swans and named you Aengus?”

Aegnus exhaled slowly, and Cáer knew that he had come to terms with it, despite his misgivings. “It is settled.” His lips were twisted into a frown, prompting Cáer to reach up to him and gently frame her hand along his jaw. He leaned into her touch and closed his eyes. “I will tell Boann and Brigid.”

“Your father, too, I think. He did not meet my mortal incarnation, but he saw how she affected both of us, even in the short time he saw us at Aughlish.” The Tuatha leader was not one to be demonstrative, but Cáer had seen how concerned he’d been for his son. “He was worried.”

Her husband raised his eyebrow at her, and she chuckled, and amended, “Maybe not worried. But—concerned. I saw it in his expression, even though he usually doesn’t act it.” She gently tugged on a lock of his richly colored red hair, so much more red and vibrant than mere human hair could ever be. “The Dagda _does_ care, my husband.”

Aengus’ snort communicated his disbelief, and Cáer knew that he did not want to dwell on the old discussion any further. “I will speak to my family,” he said, “if you will find an urn for her ashes. Between you and my father, her body is already prepared. We can build the pyre today.”

Cáer placed a parting kiss on his lips and went about preparing for the cremation of the corpse of Isabella Swan. The space along the Boyne that Aengus had indicated was mostly flat, with a large boulder on one side, which Cáer remembered dosing against as Bella, daydreaming about Edward Aengus-the-swan. Not even a year had passed since that moment when she’d recognized her mate despite his disguise, and now Bella’s remains would forever rest here. Sitting next to the boulder was a lavishly decorated funerary urn, brought by one of the fae, who said only that the Morrígan had Seen they would need it, and had it commissioned. It was perfect for Bella: beautiful, elegant, but not gaudy, it reflected the mortal Cáer had lived as.

She arranged for the large oak logs to be criss-crossed to form a short platform, onto which Bella’s corpse, resting on a tightly woven mat of the Otherworld’s long wild grasses, would be placed. Tinder and kindling filled the space under the mat of grass and between the logs. Nearby was the cist, lined with granite slabs, which would house the urn and ashes. Next to it was the large square cut of granite that they would use as the cap.

Before long, they—Aengus, Cáer, Boann, Brigid, and the Dagda—were standing before the blazing pyre, watching the cremation.  Cáer found herself unexpectedly sad. It had been her spirit inhabiting Bella’s body, but it had been Bella’s unique take on life, her individual perspective, that had affected how Cáer’s spirit had been expressed on the mortal plane for those thirty years. Though she was both Bella and Cáer, she found that she would miss that mortal influence. All that Bella had been was inside her, true, but she felt the loss of her human incarnation nonetheless.

Aengus, who had his arm wrapped around her waist and his hand resting on her hip, pulled her closer into his side, and Cáer was grateful for their connection, that he knew she was grieving just as she knew he was. Mentally, she gently brushed his mind with the sensation of her love, and was relieved that his return mental touch, while tinged with sadness, was not dominated by it. The song of a passing life, of mourning, being sung by the other three, soothed her and she settled in against Aengus’ side.

When the fire burned out and the ashes cooled, they used magic to separate her remains from the ashes of wood and grass, and placed them in the funerary urn. It was sealed and placed in the cist, and then Aengus moved the granite cap in place. He placed his hand on the stone, causing it to glow a warm gold. When the glow faded, the Swan that was Cáer’s symbol was inscribed, and in the language of the Tuatha, Bella’s name and story. The cist existed only in the Otherworld, never to be seen by mortals, but all those who lived in the Sidhe mounds would know of this mortal woman, whose life had intersected with the lives of Aengus Mac Óg and Cáer Ibormeith and been honored with burial in the Otherworld.

Inscription complete, Aengus walked back to Cáer. “We should go to Bella and Edward’s home soon. Alice, Renee, and Esme are waiting there for news.”

xx-xx-xx

They transported themselves to the back part of the property Bella had purchased when she’d decided to stay in Ireland with Edward, next to the oak Boann had used as a gateway to the Otherworld when transporting Bella at the winter solstice. Cáer shook her head silently as she thought about that. It had only been a few short months ago, and yet, she reflected, it felt as though she’d been Bella, only just learning about the world her love and her soul were a part of, ages ago. Being Bella had changed her.

Change, even to those who think themselves unchanging, is inevitable. Her worldview had been static for the vast majority of her life, only shifting when Aengus had appeared at the edge of Loch Bél Dracon to answer the dreams she’d sent him, and again when she’d lived a mortal life, for the first time without her beloved by her side. Living even a few short decades without Aengus with her, feeling what it was like to live half a life, had forged a Cáer who was different than she’d been thirty-one years before.

She trailed her fingers along the bark of the old oak. The tree’s inherent magic and energy, that which made it the favored tree of Boann, flowed under her fingertips. She was so glad to be back in her own skin, her true self. She glanced down at the human form—Bella’s form—she’d taken for this reunion with the Swan-Cullen women. Sort of her own skin, anyway.

Aengus’ hand was warm against the small of her back. “Are you ready, _a ghrá_?”

Cáer leaned back into his warmth, smiling to herself when he slid his hand across her back and around her waist. “I am, love. Are you?”

He kissed the back of her head. “Let us go, then.” Aengus pushed her forward gently, and they made their way across the yard to the back door. Through the window, she could see Alice walking from the living room to the kitchen.

At the door, she twisted the handle to open it and walk in, but was stymied when she found that it was locked. She briefly considered using her magic to force the tumblers, but decided that knocking, therefore giving her—Bella’s—cousin some warning, would be a better call.

She hadn’t anticipated how tightly wound Alice would be, though, so when she rapped gently on the door’s glass, she jumped, startled, and looked toward the door, wide-eyed. Cáer grimaced. “I should’ve just opened the door.”

“I think she would’ve jumped, regardless.” Aengus used his own magic to unlock the door and push it gently open. “Alice,” he said, a warmth in his voice that demonstrated to Cáer just how much he’d come to appreciate and love this young human woman.

Her cousin— Cáer couldn’t think of her as _Bella’s_ cousin any longer—rushed to the back door and launched herself at Cáer, giving her a fierce hug. She hugged back as strongly as she dared, cognizant of keeping her strength to human levels. She could feel Alice’s heart pounding under her arms, and she tightened her embrace a little as she gave her cousin an embarrassed laugh. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I thought knocking would startle you less than just walking in.”

“I would’ve been scared anyway.” Alice finally released her and looked her over, critically. “You look like you’re in one piece. You didn’t get hurt? You’re ok?”

“I was a little banged up, bruises here and there, but the nice thing about being involved with gods and goddesses is magic. I’m all healed up.”

Alice pursed her lips and studied her for a long moment. “There’s something different about you,” she said, “but I can’t place it. I’ll figure it out, though.” She looked hard at Cáer again, then wrapped her arms around Aengus-as-Edward, hugging him, it looked, as hard as she’d hugged Cáer-as-Bella.

Pulling back from Aengus, Alice poked him in the chest. “You feel different.”

He blinked. “I do?”

“Stronger. More like your mother and sister.” She tilted her head and examined Cáer again. “Now that I think about it...” Alice swung her head back and forth, looking from one Tuatha to the other. “You feel the same way, Bella. What happened? And don’t tell me nothing. _Something_ obviously did.”

Cáer glanced over at Aengus, and saw that he had the same wry expression that she imagined she herself wore. “I did say that Alice would take one look at me and know something was different,” she told him.

“So you did.”

“Stop being  all ‘inside joke’ and tell me what happened!” Alice had her fists planted on her hips, and Cáer very nearly laughed, because her cousin looked like a caricature of herself. The thought of the other woman’s anger if she laughed kept her quiet. The last thing she wanted to do was piss off Alice now. If this went well, there’d be plenty of time for Alice’s irritation in the decades to come.

“In the course of fighting with those who kidnapped me, we both became closer to our Tuatha de Dannan origins.” She hoped her answer would satisfy her cousin, but she knew it wouldn’t. Alice was too perceptive to let it go at that.

“‘In the course of fighting…’ Since when do you talk like that, cousin o’mine?” Alice rolled her eyes. “You sound so formal.” She stopped, and when she spoke again her voice was saturated with suspicion. “What happened? Why are you both different?”

Cáer gestured at the backdoor and the yard beyond. “Step into my office.” She said with a smile. “I don’t want to disrupt Renee or Esme.”

“And you can’t tell all of us why?” Alice asked even as she went to the door as Cáer had requested. “Was whatever happened that bad?”

Once the three of them were on the back patio and the door was closed behind them, Cáer turned to Alice. “Edward embraced his full power as Aengus when I was playing damsel. And I…my memories of being Cáer merged with my memories of Bella.”

“So you remember…however many thousands of years of Cáer’s life?”

Alice looked suspicious, but she hadn’t yet asked the question that Cáer would rather not answer, so she allowed herself to hope she could save this precious human the pain of losing a beloved family member.

“I do,” Cáer confirmed.

Alice turned to face Aengus. “You’re full-powered god now? That’s why you feel different?”

“Yes,” he said, and Cáer could tell that keeping a neutral expression was a strain for him. “I think that accounts for why I resonate differently with you.”

“You look the same, though. So your human form is just a reflection of your god form?”

“Human eyes do not deal so well with the natural forms of the Tuatha or, truly, the natural forms of most of the Otherworld residents. When we come into this plane of existence to interact with humans, we take on human forms they can relate to. In Bella’s childhood imaginings, I looked like the Edward you know, this body, so when I took human form for her in the fall, I took on the form she knew. I did not have to, however. I could have appeared as any handsome man. I look this way now for you, and your family because that is how you know me.”

Alice nodded, clearly digesting what Aengus was telling her. “It’s going to take me some time to wrap my head around this,” she told them. “Mom and Aunt Renee might have a harder time with it. You being Edward but not, because you’re more now. Well, not more, because you were always a god, but being not-human anymore. Or were you even human? Ugh.” She dragged a hand down her face, tired and frustrated. “If I can’t understand it, how am I doing to explain it to them?”

Aengus gathered her hand between his own hands, holding it loosely, but securely. “If you prefer, I will explain how I have changed since last they saw me. I will do what I can to make this easier to understand, and work with, for them. You all have only known me for a short time, but I lived with Bella, in her head, for thirty years, and your family—the three of you women, particularly—have become precious to me.” Cáer smiled to herself as her husband squeezed the young woman’s hand. “You made my love’s life easier to bear, even when she was having difficulty moving forward and understanding why she felt so disconnected from people, you all never left her side, never berated her, and in so doing you worked your way into the heart of a god.” He smiled gently. “It has been a long time, Alice Whitlock, since mere mortals earned my respect and love.”

Her cousin blinked rapidly as she stared at Aengus, and Cáer realized that she was trying to blink back the tears that were gathering in her eyes and close to spilling down her cheeks. Abruptly, she slipped her hand from his grasp and stepped forward to wrap her arms around the much taller god and pull him into a fierce hug. Aengus looked startled for a moment, but then folded his arms around her.

Over her head, he locked eyes with Cáer. _I cannot hurt her further_, he said, mind-to-mind. _Despite my misgivings, we will allow them to keep Bella, Cáer-as-Bella, for many years to come._

_I understand_, she sent back to him, glad to be in her own form again so that she could communicate with him in such an intimate way once more. _I love them, too, husband._

Alice released Aengus, then turned to Cáer. “So that explains why _he_ feels different. But that doesn’t explain you, Bella. You’re not the same as you were. Even less so than Edward is.” She closed her eyes, and Cáer knew—because Bella knew—that she was counting in an effort to calm herself down, a tactic taught to her by the school counselor when they were teens and Alice had been prone to flying off the handle. “Do I call you ‘Edward’ or ‘Aengus?’”

“Whichever name you feel comfortable with, Alice. I will answer to either one.”

“Edward, then. Calling you Aengus will confuse me, I think.” She opened her eyes to give Cáer a hard look. “Explain. Now.”

Cáer was careful not to show the fear that she felt. A little mortal such as this should not scare her. Alice didn’t, precisely, but her approval and her peace of mind mattered greatly to Cáer, just as it had to Bella. Alice was family, and upsetting family was something she did not want to do.

“With the memories of Cáer,” she told the human she’d come to care so much about, “came Cáer’s power.”

Alice took a deep breath. “What does that mean?” It was a question that, based on the stricken expression on her face, was less information gathering than confirmation. She already knew that the woman standing before her, feeling so different, was not quite the same woman she’d been about to have tea with only a few days before.

“That means that I am Cáer and I am Bella. That I came back from Aughlish different than I went into it.” She took a cautious step toward Alice, and was relieved when she didn’t back away. “It means, dear Alice, that I am your cousin and Aengus Edward’s wife and the daughter and niece of Renee and Esme and Emmett’s sister.”

“But not _just_ my cousin,” Alice added. “Not just. You are also a shapeshifter who is however many millennia old.”

“Yes. I am both Bella and Cáer. Not just one or the other.” Cáer marveled at how her stomach was twisting, waiting on the reaction of one mortal woman. A century ago—thirty-one years ago—she never would have thought she would put so much stock in the response of a single human. She wondered if Alice realized how much power she had over a goddess.

“I’m going to make a decision.” Alice fixed that hard look at Cáer again. “I’ll think about the consequences later. You,” she pointed, nearly stabbing Cáer in chest with her fingertip, “are going to be _just_ Bella for Aunt Renee and Mom. I mean it. You can’t break their hearts. When you eventually come back to Washington—which you _will_ do—you will be _just_ Bella for Uncle Charlie and Emmett and Dad and everyone else. I’m the only one who knows how different you came back.”

Delighted, Cáer closed the distance between her and the woman she was, mentally, calling cousin, and hugged her tight. “I know you have misgivings,” she said quietly into Alice’s ear, “but I am glad we are on the same page. I could not bear to break their hearts.”

Cáer was relieved when she felt Alice return her hug. There was a moment when she wasn't sure her impulsive hug would be accepted. Alice was clearly torn on how to deal with the changes to her cousin, though she was burying the impulse to freak out until she had a moment to do so out of earshot of Renee and Esme, Cáer was sure.

  
"Do you need a moment? Before we go into talk to Mom and Aunt Esme?" As she asked, she released her hold on Alice, and backed up to give her space.

Her cousin took a slow, deep breath, which she let out in one loud exhale. "I'm alright. Mom and Aunt Renee will want to see you."

Aengus closed the distance between himself and Cáer and rested his hand on her shoulder. "Will you be okay, talking to them?"

"I'm anxious to let them know I'm fine, that they didn't lose me," she said, smiling up at him. When she returned her attention to Alice, she was on the receiving end of a gimlet-eyed glare.

"Don't break them," Alice said as a final warning.

"I have no desire to do so," Cáer said, solemnly.

"We won't," Aengus answered at the same time. "We love this family Alice, hurting you—any of you—is the last thing we want."

Alice nodded then gestured to the door. "We should go in, then."

The three of them filed into the house, and Alice called out to the other two women: "Guess who the cat dragged in!"

“Alice?”

“Bella?”

Esme and Renee’s voices rang out in at the same time, and it wasn’t long before both women were hugging Cáer and Aengus. The warmth she felt in her heart for Bella’s family—_her family_—moved through her and she hugged them back that much harder.

“You’re okay sweetie?” Renee had her hand on Cáer’s cheek. “It must’ve been awful. You look so much older than you did.” She made a face. “Not that you look old, Bella, but in your eyes. Like you’ve seen so much more…” Renee trailed off, looking sad. “If you want to talk, honey, I’ll listen.”

Cáer leaned into Renee’s warm hand. “I’m not the same woman I was a few days ago, but I’m alright.” Seeing that the worry on Renee’s face hadn’t faded, she continued. “I’m okay. Really. A few bruises ‘cause I was a human girl trying to escape supernatural jailors, but like I just told Alice, one of the cool parts of being around Edward’s family is magic, and some of them have healing powers.”

Renee pulled her into another fierce hug. She whispered in Cáer’s ear. “I can’t believe I almost lost you. I think I would’ve died.” The anguish in her voice was palpable.

“Don’t worry, Mom. I don’t plan on going anywhere. You’ll have me to mother for a long time. I promise.” Cáer tightened her arms around Renee and breathed in deep. She smelled just like the part of her that was Bella knew she would. Cáer always thought that Aengus was home, but she realized that now she’d have to amend that thought: Aengus and Renee. She imagined that when she went back to Forks to visit the rest of the family that she’d have similar feelings about Charlie and Emmett.

She pulled back just enough to address all three of their visitors. “You were supposed to fly back to Washington while I was gone. Do Dad and Emmett know why you stayed? Are they freaking out?” Internally, she grimaced. Bella had often worried about her family, well aware, after Charlie being shot when she was younger, of how easily she could lose them. Cáer wasn’t sure she was going to be able to adjust to all this worry over the fragile mortals. Just the idea of Charlie or Emmett worrying because she’d been kidnapped had had her feeling nauseated. They were so _fragile_. And terribly, terribly important to her. She knew already that the worry Bella had had for her family would be nothing compared to the worry of Cáer.

“We told them I wasn’t feeling well, and couldn’t fly.” Esme looked almost apologetic. “We’ll rebook the flights when you’ve gotten settled, and we know you’re okay.

Cáer stepped away from Renee and opened her arms to Esme, who hugged her fiercely. “Bella, we were so worried.” She felt her aunt kiss her temple, and then she added, “Don’t do that to us again, ok pumpkin? I don’t think I can take it.”

“I’m sorry to worry everyone.” Cáer squeezed back had hard as she dared. “Though I am glad that they think you’re sick instead of knowing I was taken.” She smiled to herself when she saw Renee wrap Aengus up in a hug where they stood next to Alice.

Esme released her, giving her arms a squeeze before she stepped back a bit, letting Renee wrap her arms around Cáer again. Aengus moved to Esme’s side and they exchanged their own hug.

“How long do you think you’ll stay?” Cáer was still engulfed in a silently crying Renee, but she was speaking to all three women.

Aengus, his arm loosely draped over Esme’s shoulders, added, “You are welcome to stay as long as you need. We’ll help you with the tickets when you decide you’re ready to go.”

He squeezed Esme’s shoulder, but spoke to Cáer. “Do you want to call them, let them know that Esme is feeling better?”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Alice said. “Dad, to tell him to stop worrying about Mom, first.”

“I think I’ll make the rounds,” Cáer said. “Uncle Carlisle, first, like you said. But after all this…I want to talk to everyone.” She tried to get an angle on Renee’s watch. “What time is it? Better, what time is it there? I don’t want to wake anyone up.”

Alice made a face. “It’s o’dark thirty here, which makes it dinner time back home. The only ones losing sleep are us, so no big.”

“Oh, ugh, I didn’t realize how late it was. I just wanted to see you all, let you know I was rescued and okay. Didn’t even think about the time.”

“Bella, you don’t really think we’re worried about the time? You could’ve walked in at three in the morning, and we would’ve been ecstatic to see you.” Renee squeezed her arm. “Never worry about waking me up. You remember from when you were a teenager, right? I always want to know you’re home safe. Sleep is considerably less important.”

Cáer felt her throat swell with emotion and the urge to cry a little. Renee’s concern and love for her daughter was overwhelming. “Thanks, Mom,” she breathed out. She’d thought that calling Renee “mom” would feel strange, since she’s lost her own mother so very long ago, but it felt natural, and right. Bella’s family _was_ her family. There would be no acting at all, not when it came to loving them as they deserved to be loved.

“Go call Uncle Carlisle and Jasper,” she said to Esme and Alice. She looked at Aengus. “Do you still have your phone? Mine is gone. I’ll have to replace it.”

He looked a little surprised, but then nodded and reached into the deep pocket of his jeans. A moment later, he pulled it out, and handed it to Alice. “Use this while your mother calls Carlisle,” he winked, “this way you can talk to Jasper and your little ones while Esme is on the phone. Less waiting. When you two are finished, we’ll call Charlie.”

Alice accepted the phone, jogging over to another room to talk to her husband in privacy, and Esme moved toward the guest bedroom for the same.

Renee jumped a little, startling Cáer. “I almost forgot. I have a phone that will work here, too. I’ll go check in with Charlie.” She looked at Cáer. “Bella, you can talk to him when I’m done, okay? Don’t let him worry, I haven’t told him what happened. He would’ve been on the next flight to Dublin, and given what we’d just learned about Edward, here, and magic…I didn’t think your dad would handle it well.”

Cáer grinned and kissed Renee on the cheek. “Go call Dad. I’ll talk to him when you’re done.” She made a ‘shooing’ gesture. “Make kissy noises over the phone. In private. Come back to me when you’re done.”

“I love you, sweetie.” Renee squeezed her hand before she found a quiet nook—now difficult with both Alice and Esme on phone calls—to call home.

Aengus was at her side less than a second after they were left alone, his arms around her, his lips on hers. “I could not have continued on if Sengann had succeeded, and captured and drained your spirit,” he said quietly, his voice heavy with sorrow. “I could not have lived in a world without you.”

“Nor I, you,” she said in return. “I have ever loved you, Aengus. Before I met you, I loved you, as I will, always.” She pressed her lips to his. “My love for you shall ever live young.”


	16. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thank you to pogurl, for proofreading, offering suggestions, and kicking my butt to keep writing this thing. Y'all don't know how important she's been to getting this done.
> 
> Twilight Counsel peeps: If it weren't for the WCs you host, chapter fifteen and this epilogue wouldn't have gotten written when they were. Thanks!

The mobile phone, one they'd altered so it would work in the Otherworld, was ringing. Cáer frowned at Aengus. "You changed the ring to sound like one of the old rotary telephones?"

"You had it programmed to play Jimmy Buffett."

"Well, yes. A part of—oh, not home, but my mortal life. You know that Bella carried forward more than the other mortal lives have. I like having reminders." She nuzzled his neck as the last notes of the ring echoed through the room.

"You're not going to answer? You know it was Alice. She won't be happy about getting voice mail."

"Or Renee. Either way, it will be about our visit to Forks for Thanksgiving. I much prefer to be here with you than talk about flying over the Atlantic in an aluminum and steel tube with wings. Does she _have_ to know our flight information? We're hiring a car to drive from the airport. I've talked to them both half a dozen times already. They know when we're coming in."

"They're just excited, my heart. They haven't seen you—us—in a year."

"I remember, I _know_, that one of the reasons, besides you, that Bella wanted to stay in Ireland was to have some distance between her and her family. I understand why. At least with Boann and Brigid we can go decades without seeing them."

Aengus' laugh rumbled under her head, which was resting on his chest. "But when we do see them, they just pop in unannounced. At any rate, the girls only call once a week."

"Each. Alice, Esme, and Renee. Once a week each." Despite her words, and her honest frustration at what felt like a constant intrusion in a life she was used to living in isolation from the mortal world, she appreciated the outpouring of love and concern from her mortal family. Her own parents, despite one being an otherwise immortal Tuatha, had died less than a century after her marriage to Aengus. It wasn't until her time with the Swan family—immediate and extended—that she'd realized how much she missed _family_.

Their yearly trip to Forks to see Bella's—her—family was something she looked forward to each year. She was starting to notice, though, that they were all aging, her parents and aunt and uncle in particular. Carlisle, who had always looked so young, suddenly looked his age, and it no longer surprised people when he said he was a grandfather. Esme and her sister Renee, too, had wrinkles and loose skin where before they'd been smooth and firm.

It hurt to see them get older, even though it was a delight to see Alice and Jasper's children grow up year by year. Now with Rosalie and Emmett pregnant (twins, Boann had predicted when her they'd visited Ireland early in her pregnancy), they'd have the pleasure of seeing the journey of two more Swans grow into the world.

"Can we be there for their birth?" Aengus had whispered into her ear when Rose and Emmett had shared the good news.

_Of course_, she'd said in return, mind-to-mind. _But why are you so excited?_

_I want to see if she'll geld Emmett in the delivery room. Alice nearly did so to Jasper when she delivered Austin_.

She'd started laughing, and at the couple's confused looks, she'd told them she'd had a mental image of Emmett trying to change diapers—which had started Rosalie on a giggle fit, to Emmett's affront.

xxx-xx-xxx

"Bella!" As was tradition on their annual Thanksgiving visits, the moment Cáer-as-Bella stepped out of the car in front of Renee and Charlie's home, Emmett was there to scoop her up into a giant, brotherly bear hug that involved spinning and her delighted squeals.

Aengus snickered to himself. In their lives in the Otherworld, there were very few who were familiar enough with Cáer to be so physical with her. Their mortal family here in Washington, however, had no such limits, and they all manhandled both of them with a casualness that was, even after seven years, somewhat shocking. More shocking to him, he supposed, as he did not have Bella's experiences and expectations within him as Cáer did.

About the time that Emmett set Cáer down, Renee walked up and wrapped her arms around Aengus' torso in a strong hug of her own. "We're glad to see you," she told him. "It never quite feels right around here unless the whole family can come."

As he hugged her back, he grinned. "As long as I can sample those amazing pies, I'll be here every year, Renee. You'll never get rid of me." _Not that I would leave anyway_, he amended mentally.

She took his hand in hers and started dragging him inside. "Esme wants to say 'hi,' but she's chained to the kitchen right now, so you'll have to go to her." She turned her head to face her children. "Emmett! Unload the car!"

"Mom! It's not like Edward can't unload his own stuff!"

Aengus smirked at the whine in his brother-in-law's voice. No matter how old they got, Emmett could instantly revert to his childhood. With the small remote that came with the rental, he opened the trunk.

"Get to it, Emmett. I need to go say hi to everyone, too." Cáer playfully shoved him toward the car, and then jogged over to Renee to wrap her human mother in a long hug. "Hi Mom."

"Hi sweetie."

It warmed him through to see the glow that seemed to emanate from his heart. The Swan family was so good for her, for them. He worried what would happen when they inevitably passed on from this world. Already, Carlisle and Charlie had given into the creep of gray and silver across their heads, and Rosalie and Alice were complaining about how difficult it was to dye the grays out. Crows feet were decorating the corners of everyone's eyes, and –

"Uncle Edward!" And the next generation was growing up, too. Chloe, who'd been a baby when he'd first visited seven years ago, was now three and a half feet of high energy kid. With only his name as a warning, he wouldn't have been able to brace himself if he'd been human. She was wrapped around him, giggling up a storm. "Uncle Edward! Come see the puppy!"

He grinned and disentangled himself so that he crouch down in front of her and meet her piercing blue eyes. She really was a little doppelganger of Jasper with the fair coloring. "You have a puppy?"

"Aunt Renee found him and gave him to us! Come see!" She was bouncing on her toes, and he smiled hugely at her. She might have had Jasper's coloring and features, but she was much more like Alice and Emmett than her father.

"Tell you what, munchkin, how about I give you a piggy back ride in. You can navigate and tell me where to go to see the puppy. I need to give Aunt Esme a hug, too." She nodded her agreement, blonde ponytail bobbing behind her head, and bounced behind him so that she could clamber onto his back.

He stood up and they shifted a bit until she was comfortable. "In the front door, Uncle Edward. Aunt Esme is in the kitchen. She's making my favoritest pie."

"Rhubarb?" He asked, knowing full well her preferred pie was apple.

"Ewwww. I don't know why Uncle Charlie likes those. They're gross. She's making _apple_."

Aengus didn't have to pretend to be excited. He loved the apple pies, too. "Do you think she'll let us sample them?"

She laughed. "You know better. No one gets to." Chloe leaned forward so that she could whisper in his ear. "Uncle Emmett tried this morning and she hit him on the hand with her spoon."

He chuckled. "Uncle Emmett isn't sneaky like I am."

"As sneaky like you are about what?" Esme stood in the kitchen doorway, arms folded over her chest, covering the blue apron that Aengus knew was embroidered with "World's Best Grandma!"

"Illegally swiping pie samples from under your watchful eye, of course." He beamed at her, and scooped her up into a hug, careful not to unbalance her granddaughter from his back.

Esme's voice was affectionate. "Smart ass."

"Grandma!" The amount of shock Chloe managed to shove into that one word nearly sent Aengus into a fit of laughter.

Esme made a _tsking_ sound. "Don't repeat that." She shooed them out of the kitchen doorway, herding them back into the living room. "Go say 'hi' to the puppy. Leave me to my cooking."

Aengus pouted. "No pie?"

"No pie until after dinner tomorrow. Now out."

He kissed her on the cheek, and then obediently turned around and left for the living room, Chloe still on his back. As he walked away, he used his magic to take a sample from the pie filling she'd been working on before they'd interrupted her, transporting a spoon-sized bite directly into his mouth. _Mmm. Apple._

"Show me your puppy, midget. Where is she?"

"_He_, Uncle Edward. In Uncle Charlie's man cave. Daddy says he's gonna be bigger than Mom when he grows up. He has giant paws."

"That big?" Aengus navigated the stairs down to the basement room stocked with a sagging tweed-upholstered couch, two worn leather recliners, and a top-of-the-line television that Carlisle and Charlie had bought together just two weeks previous in honor of the Thanksgiving bowl games. Esme'd been horrified at the monstrosity, so it had ended up in the basement entertainment room. The end result was that Alice, Esme, and Renee were football widows—Rosalie watched the games her husband and in-laws.

When they reached the bottom of the staircase, Aengus could hear both the boom of the television's sound system, and the excited yapping of a puppy. His ear twitched. It was a bark of a magical creature, one he knew, one with a dire reputation. How had Renee gotten one?

He knocked on the door as he opened it. "Incoming," he warned.

As he spoke, Chloe shimmied her way down his back, hit the floor and ran inside. "Grandpa! Uncle Edward is here. I wanna show him Coo!"

Aengus, knowing what 'Coo' was probably short for, sighed silently. Trust a small child to mangle the name of such a beast. He shook his head. There was no way the Whitlock family could have a _Cù Sìth._The hounds were huge. Surely even Charlie and Jasper would notice the it had flaming eyes.

He fully entered the room and saw the gangly puppy with the undignified name. It was half laying on Jasper and Alice's oldest, Austin, his head taking up most of the boy's lap. He smiled as he saw it. Not full-blooded, then. He cocked his head and whistled, crouching in the doorway as Coo looked like the most exciting thing _ever_ had happened and came bounding over to him, nearly tripping over his own, quite large, feet.

As he rough-housed with the puppy he grinned up at the other men. "Part Wolfhound? By the paw size, it's either that or Mastiff."

"I don't think even Mastiff accounts for those paws. He's only seven months and he's already the size of pony." Jasper shook his head. "I half think he's the spawn of Cerberus, even if he has only one head."

Aengus laughed. "_Cù Sìth_ is more likely."

"You've obviously been talking to your mother-in-law," Charlie groused. "She found this guy as a puppy, insisted he was a 'fairy hound,'" Charlie used air quotes, "and that you and Bella would appreciate a bit of Ireland here when you came to visit."

Jasper's expression said there was more to it than that. Aengus raised a querying eyebrow up at him. "Alice insisted the kids needed a pet, and so I came home from a client site to the most ridiculous puppy I'd ever seen, cuddling with my wife on the couch. She didn't even warn me."

Snickering in appreciation of Alice, Aengus scooped up the half-mythological puppy and settled on to the couch with him on his lap.

"Oh no," corrected Charlie. "That thing might be allowed on the furniture at my niece's house, but not at mine. Dog on the floor. That's no lap dog."

Aengus obliged his father-in-law and set Coo down on the floor, and as he did, he sent a faint pulse of magic through him. What he felt made him pause. _Cù Sìth_, definitely. Wolfhound, and yes, Mastiff. It'd been an age since he'd seen such a mix, and now his in-laws had one as a _pet_. He'd lay many a treasure on his protective sister—who had a tender spot for Bella's relatives—having conveniently set this youngster to Renee as a guard where they, his family, could not actively protect them.

xxx-xx-xxx

Cáer and Alice shared a long look with each other as they watched her husband, self-satisfied and smug as only a Love God could be, sopped up the last of the gravy with a small chunk of bread, stuffing it into his mouth, and then leaned his chair back on two legs, his hands folded across his stomach in contentment.

"Four legs and two feet on the ground," Alice corrected him, just as she did with Austin.

Aengus didn't move. "You're not my mother," he mocked back at Alice. It lacked any malice, but Cáer smirked at Alice anyway, moving her index finger just the slightest bit, toppling her husband onto his back with a crash.

Emmett leaned over in his seat, offering his brother-in-law a hand. "You should know better than to mouth off to Alice by now, man. It's bad karma."

"Karma. Right." Aengus grumbled and muttered to himself, making a production of getting himself back together and upright at the table. The glare he sent Cáer's direction made her giggle.

_Aren't you glad_, she sent him, _that I convinced you that this was best?_

What he sent back through their telepathic link was the equivalent of an eye roll. _Yes, wife. You are always right. I was foolish to have reservations._

She grinned broadly at him as she plucked a pea from her plate and hit him on the nose with it.

"Bella Marie Swan Masen! Who told you you could throw food at my table?" Renee sounded as though she was only fussing at her daughter so that the younger kids wouldn't get any ideas.

Cáer beamed her most innocent expression down the table to her human mother, and Renee laughed.

"You haven't been that innocent since you were a baby, Bella. Don't try that face on me. Your father is the only one who still buys it."

Charlie snorted. "Not since she was a teenager and I caught her kissing that boy Mike at the high school football game." He looked at Bella with exaggerated horror. "That was a hard way to learn my little girl was growing up."

Her husband was glowering. She was pretty sure he'd been in Bella's head, bitching and moaning the entire encounter. Aengus definitely wouldn't want to be reminded. _Sorry_, she sent to him, with a pulse of understanding and regret.

Aengus' love flowed back to her.

Alice turned toward Bella, her expression echoing Charlie's horror. "Bella. You kissed Mike? Mike _Newton_? Gross."

"I know. I know. It turned me off of boys for the longest time. I couldn't understand why all the girls were always after Emmett. I mean, when I was in seventh grade I saw him and that cheerleader—Lauren?—making out in the woods behind the playground, and they looked like they were enjoying it. After Mike, I didn't get it." As she dropped that tidbit about Em and Lauren, she watched Rosalie turn to look at him, her hands resting on her pregnant stomach, silently demanding an explanation. Cáer was fairly certain it was all for show, so she grinned at her "older" brother. He glared at her in return.

Emmett held up his hands in an "I don't know" gesture. "I was a teenager," he told Rosalie, "and by definition, teenage boys are idiots." He leaned over a bit and placed his hand over hers, believe me, Rose, if you'd gone to school with us, I don't think I would've noticed any of the other girls."

Her sister-in-law looked pleased with this announcement, and she smiled over at Cáer; she knew as well as Cáer that Emmett had nothing to explain, even if it was fun to make him squirm.

Emmett's glare, directed at Cáer, made her laugh. She did love being around this family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all, folks! Review and let me know what you think!


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